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am the Devil/^ replied the stranger. 
“What can I do for you ?” 


Frontispiece 





THE 

DEVIL IN LONDON 


By 

GEO. R. SIMS 

n 


Illustrated 



NEW YORK 

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
220 East 230 Street 


Copyright, 1909 , by 
Dodge Publishing Company 



LIBRARY Of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 


JAN 21 1809 


^ Cepyrl^t Entry 
^LASS A- XAc. No. 
COPY a, 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. PAGB 

I. An Adventuke in Soho 5 

II. The Splendid Hotel .. .. .. .. 19 

III. The Hidden Horror 34 

IV. Sister Angela 47 

V. The Devil^s Acre 60 

VI. The Devil^s ‘"Agency^' 73 

VII. The Fowler’s Net 87 

VIII. The Eogues^ Rendezvous .. .. 102 

IX. The Road to Ruin 116 

X. The Ladies" Paradise 129 

XL The Children of Tragedy .. .. 141 

XII. In the Shadow of St. Stephen"s .. 154 




CHAPTER I 

AH ADVENTURE IN SOHO 

The clock of a neighboring church struck one as Alan 
Fairfax stood hestitatingly at a corner of Piccadilly 
Circus. 

The gaiety and movement of the quarter were over. 
The shops were shut, the last supper guests at the res- 
taurants had departed, and already the passing police- 
man was trying doors and flashing his buirs-eye upon 
padlocks and fastenings. 

A few solitary female figures were to be seen here 
and there. A little group of restaurant employ- 
ees crossed the road chatting together in a foreign 
tongue. 

A woman dressed in black, with a veil arranged over 
her head after the Spanish fashion, glided to and fro in 
a ghostly manner, holding a tray of matches in front 
of her. 

Two policemen came from Leicester Square with a 
ragged loafer between them, forcing him along none 
too gently in the direction of Vine Street Police Station. 

Three foreign women, showily and expensively 
dressed, came along Piccadilly, followed by a grey- 
haired old beldame whining for alms. 

An English girl in an ill-fitting ready-made ^^cos- 
tume,’’ and wearing a boa of cheap imitation fur 
doubled round her throat so that a portion of it partially 


6 


THE DEVIL IH LOISTDOH 


covered her mouth, leaned against the shutters of a shop 
and coughed distressingly. 

Two mission sisters who had been pacing the almost 
deserted pavement like sentinels, stopped and talked 
earnestly with her. The girl listened for a moment, 
then shook her head and moved wearily away. 

The sound of her hollow cough echoed in the silence 
of the night until she had disappeared in the distance. 

As the sisters passed him Alan Fairfax looked at 
them earnestly. One was a middle-aged woman, the 
other was quite young, and he was struck by her gentle 
beauty. 

The old beldame who had been following the foreign 
women stopped at the corner, and began muttering to 
herself. 

As the younger sister who had attracted Fairfax’s 
attention passed her the old woman looked up. 

‘^Good-night, Sister Angela,” she said. 

“Good-night, Bridget,” replied the sister, softly. 
“Why don’t you come in and let us help you ?” 

The woman moved away, muttering to herself. 

These scenes were not new to Alan Fairfax. During 
the six weeks that he had been in London, staying at 
a fashionable and world-renowned hotel, he had passed 
through the Circus frequently both at midnight and in 
the small hours. 

When — by the death of his father, an invalid who, 
taking the advice of his doctors, had gone to Hew 
Zealand in the hope of prolonging his life, and had re- 
mained there for a couple of years with his only son as 
a companion — Alan had inherited a fortune little short 


1 


AN ADVENTUEE IN SOHO 

of a couple of millions of money, the young man had 
come to Europe, and spent a year in traveling about the 
Continent. 

Alan Fairfax was two-and-twenty when he left Eng- 
land. He was five-and-twenty when he came back to 
Europe with a vast fortune at his command. 

He came from the Continent to London satiated with 
amusement and eager for some new interest in life. 

Alone, without occupation, weary of the pleasures 
that his wealth made so easy of attainment, he began 
to conceive strange and fantastic ideas of the uses to 
which he might put his millions. 

But the sterling common-sense which he had inherited 
from his Scotch forbears triumphed over his momen- 
tary aberration. He was the last man in the world to 
fall a victim to the madness of magnificence, and the 
idea of spending huge sums of money for the purpose of 
self-advertisement was repugnant to him. 

One day, while reading the morning paper, he came 
upon a passage in an article descriptive of London. He 
read it carelessly at first, and then returned to it with 
greater appreciation of its significance: — 

‘^How many of London’s ordinary citizens can realize 
or can hope to realize what London really means ? The 
mother of cities lays her whole heart bare to none. 
There is no man living who has fathomed her depths. 
There is no man living who has mastered her mys- 
teries.” 

The immensity of London had always appealed 
strongly to the young millionaire. But until he read 
those lines he had never recognized that within the four 


8 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


corners of the mighty capital lay a land that a man 
might travel all his life, gleaning every day some new 
knowledge of its strange humanity, peering far down 
into the gloom of its unfathomed depths, and waiting 
for the moment when favoring chance might reveal to 
him the mysteries that lie beyond the veil. 

Possessed by this idea, he had begun to wander the 
byways of Babylon. His interest had been quickly 
aroused. There was a heart throb, an earnestness of 
purpose, a taking of the chances of life among the peo- 
ple of the byways and the mean streets that was in strik- 
ing contrast to the butterfly existence of the men and 
women of the wealthy and fashionable world. 

Hitherto he had confined his wanderings ^^ofi the 
track^’ to the hours of daylight. He did not want to 
place himself in the hands of a guide who would conduct 
him in the conventional way to the East End, and show 
him the usual sights to which Americans and Colonials 
are taken by retired ^^detectives’^ recommended by the 
hotel porter. 

But on the night that he stood hesitating at Piccadilly 
Circus, he was trying to make up his mind to act on in- 
formation which had been given him by a foreign waiter 
at a notorious restaurant where he occasionally supped, 
because it is one of the features of a certain phase of 
“Life in London.^’ 

The man had told him of a place in Soho which was 
a low gambling den, at which faro was played by the 
foreign riff-raff of the quarter till three and four o’clock 
in the morning. 

The waiter, in exchange for a generous tip, had scrib- 


AN ADVENTUEE IN SOHO 9 

bled on the young millionaire’s card a few words in Ger- 
man which would be a passport to the door-keeper, and 
would also secure the visitor the politeness of the pro- 
prietor. 

Alan Fairfax was eager to follow up the chance of 
an adventure. The reason he hesitated for a moment 
when he came to Piccadilly Circus was that he had a 
large sum of money in bank-notes in his pocket-book. 
Being robbed would not particularly matter to him, but 
he had no desire to be robbed with violence, should some 
of the foreign thieves who frequent these dens think he 
was likely to be a profitable victim. 

But his hesitation did not last long. He made up 
his mind to take the risk. He crossed the Circus, and 
turned up Shaftesbury Avenue till he came to Wardour 
Street. 

From Wardour Street he turned into Little Comp- 
ton Street, off which the narrow turning lay in which 
the gambling den was situated. 

The street was almost deserted. A foreign-looking 
man was lounging at a corner half-way down it. There 
was no one else in sight. 

Alan Fairfax walked along leisurely. He was trying 
to find the turning he had to take. As he was peering 
about he heard the sound of shuffling footsteps behind 
him. 

Thinking it well in the lonely street at that hour of 
the night to see his company, he stood in a doorway to 
let the owner of the shuffling feet pass him. 

When he saw who was following him he smiled. It 
was an old woman. He could not see her features dis- 


10 THE DEVIL IH LOHDOK 

tinctly, as she had a dark woolen shawl over her 
head. 

But he saw that in her hand she held a small bottle. 

He thought that she had been to a neighboring chem- 
ist’s, and rung him up to get medicine. He presumed a 
case of sudden illness in her home, and pitied her. 

The woman was feeble. The shuffling was due to in- 
firmity. She seemed trying to hurry along, and she 
passed Fairfax without noticing him. 

He watched her up the street, not moving from where 
he was. 

A little further along she came to the corner at which 
he had seen the man standing. 

As she came near him the man stepped back. She 
passed him, and instantly he sprang out and seized her 
roughly. She uttered a cry, and Alan hurried to her 
assistance. 

Before he could get to her the man had thrown the 
old woman down, and was kneeling on her and endeav- 
oring to force something from her hand. 

In the struggle the bottle had fallen to the ground, 
and was smashed. A white liquid that had the odor of 
laudanum had poured from it, and lay in a little pool 
on the pavement. 

With an exclamation of anger Alan Fairfax flung 
himself on the ruffian, and struck him. 

The man, finding that he was not likely to be a match 
for the big, vigorous young Englishman, took to his 
heels, and disappeared in the darkness. 

hope you are not hurt?” said Fairfax, as he bent 
down and helped the woman to rise. 


AN ADVENTUEE IN SOHO 


11 


She lifted her eyes gratefully to her protector, and 
Fairfax saw that they were large and luminous, and 
in strange contrast to the wrinkled face and snow-white 
hair. 

^^Thank you — oh, thank you, sir,” the woman gasped, 
speaking in French. “I am not hurt, I think — but I am 
old and weak, and it has shaken me very much.” 

Fairfax knew enough French to reply to the old lady 
in her own language. 

^‘The rascal !” he exclaimed ; ‘^has he robbed you of 
anything ?” 

^^No, monsieur ; no,” replied the old woman, clinging 
to the young man’s arm, and still trembling. ^^He did 
not want to rob me of anything but the key. He must 
have watched me out — when I went for the laudanum 
— and then he thought he would take the key from me.” 

^‘What did you want laudanum for at one in the 
morning — ^you have some one ill — some one in pain at 
home ?” 

“No ; the laudanum was for myself. I take it, mon- 
sieur ; I cannot do without it. It is the one thing that 
gives me peace, that helps me to forget.” 

Fairfax nodded. “I understand,” he said. “But you 
know this man — if you do, why should he rob you of 
the key instead of asking you for it ?” 

“He would not ask me because he knows I would not 
give it. In the house in which I lodge, monsieur, there 
is a woman; she is his wife. She will not live with 
him; she will not speak to him. She has money that 
she has earned honestly, money that she keeps in her 
room. He would have got into the house and into the 


12 


THE DEVIL m LONDOH 


room of that woman, and stolen her money. What could 
she do if her husband got in ? She is his wife. Good- 
night, monsieur, and thank you — a thousand times, 
thank you.’’ 

The old woman moved a pace or two forward. The 
young man saw that she was dazed with the fall, and 
took her arm. 

^^Come,” he said, ^4f you will let me I will see you 
safely to your door. This fellow may still be hanging 
about. Do you live near here ?” 

“The next street, monsieur. If you will help me. It 
is very good of you.” 

The old woman took the young man’s arm, and they 
went slowly along together. At the corner of the next 
street the woman stopped. 

“It is here that I live, monsieur.” 

It was a curious old house that the strange couple 
stopped in front of. It was an old-fashioned, eighteenth 
century mansion with a carved over-door and long win- 
dows. It had once been the residence of a wealthy mer- 
chant, perhaps of a nobleman. 'Now it was a house let 
out in single rooms to foreigners. 

The old woman gave the key to Fairfax, and he 
opened the door for her. The passage was dark, and 
there was no light on the stairs. 

“Which floor do you live on?” asked Fairfax. 

“The third. Do not trouble any more, monsieur, I 
am safe now.” 

“But you are not all right. Come, if you will allow 
me I will help you up the stairs and see you safely to 
your room.” 


Al^ ADVENTUKE m SOHO 


13 


^^You are very kind, monsieur ; I shall be grateful.” 

The stairs were steep. Once or twice in the darkness 
the woman stumbled, and Fairfax was glad that he had 
stayed to help her. 

On the third floor the old Frenchwoman stopped at 
a landing, and Fairfax, taking his matchbox from his 
pocket, struck a light. 

^^This is it, monsieur — this is my room.” 

She took a small key from her pocket and opened 
the door. A little lamp turned low threw a dim light 
over the room. 

^Will you not come in for a moment ?” she said. 
should like to tell you who it is that you have been so 
kind to.” 

She turned the lamp up, and Fairfax, standing in the 
doorway, glanced round the apartment. 

There was an air of refinement and neatness that told 
its tale of better days, but that did not astonish her visi- 
tor, for he had gathered from the old lady^s manner and 
speech that she was superior to her surroundings. 

^^You see, monsieur, I do my best with the little 
strength and the little money I have left. I am a good 
tenant. The proprietor likes me. I have made his fur- 
niture look so nice he has been even tempted to increase 
my rent.” 

^^A furnished room,” exclaimed the young man; 
^^nothing here, then, is yours?” 

^^Hothing, monsieur — except that.” 

She pointed to an old-fashioned, brass-nailed travel- 
ing trunk covered with faded labels, worn and battered 
with use and age. 


14 THE DEVIL IH LOILDOH 

^That, monsieur, is all I have left of my famous 
days.” 

^Tamous days?” 

‘^Yes, monsieur. Ah, you do not recognize me — how 
should you ? I am old, and you are young. You were 
not even on the earth when all Paris was at my feet, and 
all Europe knew of my beauty. I am Blanche 
D’Artigny.” 

^^Blanche D’Artigny!” 

The young man gazed intently at the wrinkled face, 
Rembrandtesque in the dim light of the lamp, and gaz- 
ing he remembered what he had read in the books that 
told the story of gay life in Paris in the mad, merry 
days of the sixties, ere the shadow of Sedan fell upon 
France. 

Then he remembered the name of Blanche D’Artigny, 
queen of the half world, who supped with sovereigns, 
out-dressed duchesses, and as a mark of her favor pre- 
sented her signed photographs to princes. 

have heard, I have read,” the young man stam- 
mered, ^^but is it possible?” 

The old woman smiled sadly. 

^^Everything is possible in this world, monsieur. I 
lost my fortune years ago. I had lost my friends long 
before then. While I was still a rich woman I married 
for love. My husband was young. He married me for 
my money. I gave him everything. He gambled my 
fortune away, and when there was only a little left he 
robbed me of that and deserted me. 

^^For years I had no word of him. Three years ago 
I learned that he was in London, poor and broken down. 


A-N ADVEITTUKE IN SOHO 


15 


I came to London and found him in a hospital. There 
I stood by his deathbed and forgave him. 

have lived in London ever since, parting with the 
few things I still possessed to pay for this little room 
in Soho. But there is one thing I have never parted 
with — that.” 

She pointed to the old traveling trunk, and then walk- 
ing slowly to it raised the lid. 

^^You see what it contains — little trifles that I have 
treasured, monsieur, as relics of the old days. Among 
them are photographs and letters. Ah, you do not know 
what some of those letters would fetch if I would sell 
them. But I shall never do that. They are the letters 
of kings, of princes, of ambassadors, of great men who 
have admired me and have not feared to tell me 
so. 

^^There are secrets in those letters, monsieur, which 
it would be an infamy to betray. Sometimes I read 
them and live in the past again — then I grow sad and 
my poverty is a pain. Then, monsieur, that I may for- 
get, that the pain of living may be lulled, I turn to my 
one friend — the white water of peace and sleep.” 

The thought of the poverty and loneliness of the 
woman, who had once been the admired of princes and 
the queen of the gay world of Paris, touched the young 
millionaire to the heart. 

He drew his note case from his pocket. 

^^Madame,” he said, ^^you will permit a stranger to 
come to your assistance.” 

Blanche D’Artigny shook her head. 

^^Ho, monsieur, I am not in want. For shelter and for 


16 


THE DEVIL IN LONBON 


food I shall have enough till I die. I need so little now. 
If there is to be a gift between us it should be from 
me to you, for I owe you so much.” 

She turned to the trunk, the lid of which she had left 
open, and searching among her treasures she drew out 
a little faded shagreen case. She opened the case and 
took from it a finger ring. 

^^See, monsieur,” she said, ^^here is something which 
you need not refuse on account of its value. It is only 
a simple ring with a red stone. I could get very little 
for it if I sold it — so you will not hesitate to take it.” 

^^But, madame, I do not wish to deprive you of your 
souvenir.” 

The old lady smiled. 

^Tt will not pain me to part with it. It was given 
to me by an Indian Kajah who came to Paris in the Ex- 
hibition year. He told me it was a curiosity, but I never 
valued it.” 

Fairfax took the ring and examined it. It was evi- 
dently of little value, but it seemed to him that the red 
stone, as it caught the light of the lamp, gleamed like 
the eye of an evil bird. 

^^Has it a history ?” he asked. 

do not know, monsieur. All I know is that the In- 
dian Bajah when he gave it to me said that it was the 
most wonderful ring in the world. He who wears it 
can call the devil to his aid.” 

Alan Fairfax laughed. '^Have you ever put its power 
to the proof ?” he asked. 

^^Ah, monsieur, the devil has been busy with my af- 
fairs all my life. I have no need of him now. Besides, 


AIT ADVENTUKE IN SOHO 


lY 

the Kajah told me that in the possession of a woman 
its power vanished. Perhaps that is why he gave it me.” 

She took the ring from the young man, and, putting 
it into the little shagreen case, pressed it into his hand. 

^^Take it, monsieur,” she said; ^^you have been very . 
kind to an old woman, and Blanche D’Artigny was al- 
ways grateful for kindness. It will make me happy to 
think that you did not refuse my gift.” 

The young millionaire hesitated for a moment, then 
he took the little green case and put it in his pocket. 

He made up his mind that he would find a means of 
helping the poor old Frenchwoman in a way that she 
could not refuse or resent. 

Then he bade her good-night, and went down the 
stairs. 

Blanche D^Artigny came out on the landing and held 
the lamp over the banisters to light her young champion 
down. 

He looked up and saw the white hair, the wrinkled 
face, the bent trembling form, and a feeling of infinite 
pity filled his heart. Then, remembering the strange 
gift that he was carrying with him from the dingy lodg- 
ing house in Soho, he smiled. 

It was his first real adventure since he set out to mas- 
ter the mysteries of London. 

It was close upon two as Fairfax came out into the 
street. 

He determined to postpone his visit to the gambling 
den and make his way to his hotel. 

As he came into Shaftesbury Avenue two women 
passed him. 


18 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


A young girl, who had to stop now and then, her thin 
frame shaken by a cruel cough, was one of them. 

^^Oh, you don’t know how ill I am,” she gasped. 

^^Oh, yes, I do,” was the reply, ^^that is why I am 
going to take you to my own home. If you will only 
stay I will nurse you till you arp well again.” 

Alan Fairfax stood and looked after the retreating 
figures. One poor lost soul in London had found and 
taken a gentle hand stretched out to succor and to save. 

Sister Angela’s long night vigil where the skirts of 
sorrow trail had not been in vain after all. 

Alan Fairfax watched Sister Angela and her charge 
out of sight. Then he turned his steps homeward. 

He had much to meditate upon as he went. He had 
seen the noblest work of womanhood accomplished un- 
der the skies of night by a young and beautiful English 
maiden; he had found the former queen of the gay 
world of Paris a lonely old woman in a garret in Soho, 
and she had sent him out into the night with a talisman 
which, if the story of the Indian Rajah was true, would 
make subservient to his will the arch enemy of man- 
kind. 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 


19 


CHAPTEK II 

THE SPLENDID HOTEL 

When Alan Fairfax came into his sitting-room on the 
morning following his night adventure in Soho he found 
the usual pile of letters laid out for him on the break- 
fast table. 

A widely circulated morning paper that made a fea- 
ture of chronicling the arrivals at the fashionable hotels 
had, soon after he took up his quarters at the Splendid, 
referred to him as a young millionaire in its Society 
Gossip column. This publicity had caused an avalanche 
of appeals for subscriptions from philanthropic societies 
and charitable institutions to descend upon him. 

Was London the seething cauldron of sin and shame 
that the Rescue Societies reported it to he ? Were the 
depths of the abyss so foul and black ? Did the church 
bells ring out day after day over such vast regions of 
misery and despair? 

These were the thoughts that came to Fairfax when 
the black pictures painted in the appeals had begun to 
lose their effect upon him, and the persistence of the 
note of misery had become monotonous. 

Fairfax dealt in the usual way with his morning 
mail, and there was one letter left. He opened it with 
a bored expression, but directly he had read the first 
line his face brightened. It was dated from an hotel 
in Museum Street. 


20 


THE DEVIL m LOXDOH 


^^Dear Mr. Fairfax: — I see that you are back in 
England and staying at the Splendid. I am in London 
to make some researches at the British Museum. I am 
staying at the above hotel. If you will lunch with me 
here at 1.30, I shall be so glad to see you again and 
have a chat over old times. 

Yours sincerely, 

^Mohn Pattison.” 

The Rev. John Pattison had been the young man’s 
tutor in his Yorkshire home. He sent a message at 
once accepting the invitation. 

***** 

Alan Fairfax after lunch walked with his old tutor 
to the Museum, and there they said good-by. But the 
young man had not visited the famous collection since 
his boyhood, and he thought he might as well devote an 
hour or two to seeing the national treasures again. 

Presently he came to the Egyptian rooms and found 
his way to the mummies. There were very few people 
in the Museum that afternoon, and for a time he had 
the mummies to himself. He was looking with a cer- 
tain amount of interest not unmixed with awe at an 
Egyptian celebrity who had played his part upon the 
world’s stage some five thousand years ago, when a tall 
clean-shaven military-looking man of about sixty en- 
tered the room with a lady. Without being a beautiful 
woman her features were classically molded. In her 
soft grey eyes there was a dreamy far-away look. 

The man’s face was grave, and Alan noticed that his 
hand trembled slightly. Presently the woman spoke: 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 


21 


^^Take care,” she said to her companion. ^^What I 
saw in my dream last night is true. They have brought 
her from the darkness where she lay so long, and she 
is here — ^here, where you are — and it means evil to 
you.” 

^^You are certain that it is my enemy?” murmured . 
the man, the color fading from the face bronzed by In- 
dian suns. 

The woman crossed to the sarcophagus in which lay 
the shrouded mummy of a priestess of Amen Ka. Slowly 
the man followed her. 

Looking down upon the mummy he uttered some 
words that Alan could not understand. For a moment 
there was silence, then with a hoarse cry he staggered 
back and sank on one of the benches, apparently in a 
state of collapse. 

Alan, alarmed, at once went to the fainting man^s 
assistance. 

^^He is ill,” he said to the lady ; ^^can I do anything ?” 

^^Thank you,” said the lady, quietly. ^Tf you will 
take his arm and help him from the room it will be kind 
of you.” 

Alan Fairfax offered his arm, and the man took it 
and rose with an effort, and walked feebly forward, the 
lady following him. 

Outside the invalid quickly recovered. 

^^Thank you,” he said, as Alan offered to accompany 
them to the entrance hall; am quite myself again. 

I should not have ventured into the presence of my 
ancient enemy.” 

^‘Your enemy?” exclaimed Fairfax. 


22 


THE DEVIL IH LONDON 


The lady, with a reassuring smile at her companion, 
held up a warning hand. 

^^This gentleman may not he a Theosophist,” she said ; 
^^he will not understand.’^ Then, turning to the young 
man, she said, quietly: “The Colonel in a former in- 
carnation was a Priest of Isis. The mummy into whose 
presence he ventured was his deadly enemy, and is still 
a malignant influence.” 

Then she took her companion’s arm and led him gen- 
tly away. 

Alan Fairfax knew of Theosophy only what he had 
read. The idea of a malignant mummy seemed so pre- 
posterous that when he got out into the street among 
policemen and motor ’buses and taxi-cabs and the bust- 
ling crowd of twentieth-century civilization, he was in- 
clined to think that he was the victim of a day dream. 

But the strange adventure had made a deep impres- 
sion on him, and that evening, when he had dressed for 
dinner and was sitting by the Are in his room in the 
hotel, he gazed into the glowing embers, and the strange 
scene he had witnessed enacted itself again before him. 

“It is unbelievable,” he said to himself; “and yet 
when men yield to the fascination of the occult they 
surrender themselves blindly.” 

As the thought shaped itself he suddenly remembered 
the mysterious ring that the old Frenchwoman had 
given him the previous night. He had, when he re- 
turned to the hotel, taken it from his pocket and put it 
in a drawer. The adventure had almost passed from his 
mind until now. 

“Is there anything in the occult?” he said. “Is it 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 


possible that the Indian Pajah really believed that the 
ring he gave to Blanche D’Artigny gave its possessor 
power to 

He went into his bedroom, took the little shagreen 
case from the drawer, and brought it back into the sit- 
ting-room. 

Then he sat down by the fire again, and taking the 
ring out, examined it curiously, and placed it on his 
finger. 

‘Tf it does possess the virtue,” he hesitated — the word 
was hardly the right one to use — with this I really 
possess the power of raising the devil, I wonder what 
sort of a devil he would be ?” 

He looked at the red stone in the ring and wondered 
what it was. He breathed on it, and rubbed it gently 
with his finger to see if it would shine. Then, mock- 
ingly, and with a smile at his own folly, he said 
aloud : 

‘^Slave of the Bing, appear!” 

A burning coal fell out of the fire on to the hearth, 
and the smoke from it poured into the room. Fairfax 
bent forward, and taking the tongs picked up the coal 
and placed it upon the fire again. 

When he sat back in his chair and raised his eyes he 
uttered an exclamation of astonishment. 

Standing just inside the door, which was closed, was 
a tall, dark, slim man of distinguished appearance and 
in evening dress. His face was of the Spanish type, a 
pair of bright, black eyes gleamed between half-closed, 
oblong-shaped eyelids, his straight black hair was tinged 
with gray, and he had a small, gray moustache which 


24 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


turned up a little fiercely, showing the corners of a 
mouth that seemed set in a mocking smile. 

Fairfax stared at the intruder for a moment, then, 
rising, he greeted him with a slight bow. 

‘T beg your pardon,” he said, ^^but you have made a 
mistake. This is a private room.” 

The stranger smiled. ^^Quite so,” he replied, ^‘but I 
am here at your invitation. You summoned me to your 
presence.” 

summoned you!” stammered Fairfax, involun- 
tarily stepping back. As he did so he caught sight of 
the ring upon his finger. ‘^Am I, then, to believe,” ex- 
claimed the young man, ^^that you are the — the ” 

am the Devil,” replied the stranger, ^^and at your 
service. What can I do for you ?” 

‘‘1 — I — don’t know,” gasped Fairfax. did not 
imagine for a moment ” 

^Tet me come to your assistance, Mr. Fairfax,” an- 
swered the stranger. ^That is what I am bound to do 
in all that you desire, so long as it pleases you to com- 
mand my services. You need have no fear of my com- 
promising you. I am quite at home in the very best 
society.” 

can quite believe that,” said the young millionaire 
uneasily; ‘^but do I really understand that it is for me 
to command and for you to obey ?” 

‘Tn everything that concerns yourself I can take you 
where no one else can. If your desire is to go about 
town with me I can show you life — life as I know it, 
and — if I may say so without arrogance — as I specially 
arrange it.” 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 


25 


‘^You have read what was passing in mj mind,” ex- 
claimed Fairfax, eagerly. you are not a creature of 
my imagination, hut the Devil himself, take me about 
London — show me this vast city as it really is, and as 
you know it.” 

^^Certainly. When shall we start — ^now?” 

‘T haven’t dined yet.” 

‘Wery good, then I will stay and dine with you.” 

^Tf you like,” answered Fairfax a little nervously. 

will ring and order dinner to he served here at once.” 

^^No, no ! Let us dine in the restaurant. I can show 
you some of my work. There are some very fine speci- 
mens of it in this hotel.” 

‘‘You know the Splendid ?” 

“Thoroughly — it is one of my favorite hotels.” 

The young millionaire turned to ring for the waiter. 
As he did so he saw his face reflected in the mirror. His 
cheeks were flushed. He had experienced a curious feel- 
ing of excitement in the presence of his mysterious visi- 
tor, and he began to wonder if he was stricken with 
some strange malady that in its early stages caused the 
brain to be affected. 

But as there was nothing repellent or outre in his 
visitor’s appearance he made up his mind to see the ad- 
venture to the end. 

***** 

The restaurant of the Splendid was world-famous, 
and a brilliant company crowded it nightly. In addi- 
tion to the guests of the hotel, principally Americans, 
during the season, it was a favorite resort of the Smart 
Set, the gay Bohemian belles of Limelight Land and 


^6 


THE DEVIL IH LONDOH 


their admirers, wealthy members of the Jewish com- 
munity, young and old, and that curious cosmopolitan 
contingent which is at home everywhere, and has, ap- 
parently, no home of its own anywhere. 

Alan Fairfax was not at all at his ease when he sat 
down in the crowded and brilliantly lighted room with 
his uncanny companion. 

He wondered what the company would think if they 
knew that the dark gentleman, whom it had been agreed 
between them he should address in need as ^^Prince,” 
was the Prince of Darkness. 

But his guest quickly put him at his ease. His man- 
ners were perfect, and though he would easily have 
passed for a foreign nobleman he spoke in the low tone 
which always marks the well-bred Englishman in a 
crowded cosmopolitan assembly. 

To Alan the company that assembled nightly in the 
restaurant for dinner, and sat about the lounge after- 
ward, had presented no particular attraction. But as 
his companion pointed out various groups and indi- 
viduals to him he began to regard them in quite a new 
light. 

He saw a finely built, middle-aged man of aristocratic 
appearance entertaining a party of eight with lavish 
hospitality at a round table magnificently decorated with 
exotics, ordering the rarest wines, and evidently ‘^doing 
the thing^’ regardless of cost, and he learned from his 
new ^Triend” that this generous host had been three 
times bankrupt, and that on the last occasion his failure 
had caused two suicides. 

He saw a stout lady overladen with jewels dining 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 


27 


with a bald-headed little man, who looked the personifi- 
cation of benevolence, and he learned that this benev- 
olent-looking gentleman was the proprietor of innumer- 
able small loan offices, and that he had hundreds of poor 
hard-working men and women in his clutches who 
starved themselves and their children to pay the extor- 
tionate interest which he demanded. 

^^At this very moment,” said the Prince, “when he is 
beaming at his diamond-laden wife, and gallantly rais- 
ing his glass of champagne to her, one of his agents is 
seizing the poor furniture of an unhappy woman who is 
slowly dying of an agonizing complaint. To-night the 
poor creature will be without a bed to lie on. He lent 
her £5 two years ago. She has paid back £12. The 
furniture of her two poor rooms is being seized for £8, 
the balance of loan and interest. 

“Look at that pretty girl who is dining with a rather 
foolish-looking young fellow. She is a married woman. 
The young fellow doesn’t know it. He takes her about 
everywhere, and has spent a fortune on her. He writes 
her letters — silly, boyish, slangy, love-letters — ^for he is 
infatuated with her. When he has exhausted his ready 
money, and his credit is stopped, and there is nothing 
more to be got out of him, the husband will appear on 
the scene with the letters in his possession, and there 
will be threats of divorce and public scandal. Then 
the young fellow’s father, who is a nobleman renowned 
for his piety and a pillar of the Church, will have to 
draw a cheque for a big round sum in order to stop the 
^scandal’ of public proceedings. 

“Look at the little party at the next table to us. The 


28 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


host and his wife are entertaining a hanker, the banker’s 
daughter, and a baronet and his wife. 

^^The guests are quite nice people. I have no business 
with them at all. But the host came here from Poland 
twenty years ago with a little money that he got from 
a poor girl to whom he was engaged. She was a servant 
and stole it for him. He started as a curb hawker in 
the East End. Then he took a shop and had a fire, sent 
for the girl and married her. That was the one honest 
action in his life; if there are others he has carefully 
concealed them from me. After that he had three fires 
in five years. In the last some lodgers on the top floor 
narrowly escaped being burned to death. To-day he 
has a magnificent house, a two-thousand-guinea motor 
car, and, as you see, he and his wife entertain bankers 
and baronets.” 

When dinner was over the Prince suggested that they 
should have their coffee in the lounge. He had some 
interesting specimens of men and women engaged in his 
service to point out to his host. 

^Hook at those two distinguished-looking men of for- 
eign appearance seated at the little table next to us. The 
elegantly dressed lady with a display of diamonds who 
is with them is a French countess here. She was a bar- 
oness in Germany, and she spent a very profitable 
season at Monte Carlo as a Russian princess. The 
men are two of the most accomplished swindlers 
of the day. They are well known to the police 
of all countries, and have had narrow escapes in 
several. 

^^The Countess’s last coup in Paris brought a South 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 29 

American millionaire into their toils, and he left £30,- 
000 behind him as the price of his freedom/’ 

^^Do yon mean to say that in an hotel like this there 
are criminals known to the police 

^‘The most dangerous criminals in Europe patronize 
the best hotels of Paris, London, and New York. It is 
there that they find their most profitable prey.” 

^‘There is another interesting case,” said the Prince, 
pointing to a stout man of the German type, smoking 
a big cigar, and chatting with a good-looking young 
woman with blue eyes and fair hair.” 

^^That is surely not a thief or a swindler,” said Fair- 
fax. ^matishe?” 

‘^He is a highly educated man, occupying a good pro- 
fessional position in a Continental town,” said the 
Prince, ^^but you will read all about him in a few days. 

^^To-morrow he will be arrested for the murder of his 
wife’s mother, whose fortune she inherits. He is spend- 
ing the last pleasant evening he is ever likely to know 
with his wife here, and they are arranging their plans 
for the future. 

^^Do you see a young and pretty woman at the far end 
of the lounge, listening, evidently with keen apprecia- 
tion, to the beautiful ^Romance’ the band is now play- 
ing? 

^^There is a little unpleasantness in front of her, but 
she will have another week of luxurious hotel life before 
her trouble comes. 

^^When her apartment in the hotel is searched her 
trunks will be found filled with valuable articles, of 
which she has relieved the fashionable shopkeepers of 


30 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


the West End. Her highly respected connections will 
plead on her behalf that she is a kleptomaniac. It is 
a useful word when the thief is well bred, and has rela- 
tives with the money willing to make her depredations 
good.” 

^^Surely,” exclaimed Fairfax, glancing round the 
lounge with an involuntary shudder, ^There are some de- 
cent people here.” 

^^Oh, yes, a great number, but it doesn’t amuse me 
to talk about them.” 

^^Thank goodness,” murmured Fairfax, greatly re- 
lieved. ‘‘How let us go out.” 

He was anxious to see the Devil’s work in the high- 
ways and the byways of the capital, with the arch fiend 
for his guide. 

It should be his task, knowing what the work of the 
Evil One was, to aid in the fight against it with all the 
power that practical knowledge and vast wealth would 
give him. 

***** 

They took the elevator to Fairfax’s room, that he 
might get his hat and overcoat. 

When he came out of his bedroom his guest was 
dressed for the street. A dark Inverness cape and a 
soft black, artistic-looking hat gave him a decidedly for- 
eign appearance. But Alan confessed to himself that in 
every sense of the word he looked “a distinguished 
stranger.” 

“Are you ready. Prince ?” said Fairfax. 

“Quite; but before we go there is another phase of 
fashionable hotel life you might like to see. Follow me,” 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 31 

Alan Fairfax accompanied his guide to the end of 
the corridor. 

There the Prince softly opened a door and beckoned 
Fairfax to follow him. The young man found himself 
in a large and beautifully appointed room. It was 
empty. The occupants had evidently just finished din- 
ner, for the table was covered with fruit and flowers; 
and used dessert plates and wine glasses were still upon 
it. There were no wine bottles and no decanters. These 
had been removed. 

^^Pass behind the screen near the window,” whispered 
the Prince to Fairfax, and the young man obeyed. 

Presently a door at the end of the room opened, and 
a young woman came out. She glanced hack into the 
room she had quitted, and then went out along the cor- 
ridor. 

^That is a trained nurse,” whispered the Prince. ^Hn 
hotels the nurses do not wear uniforms. The managers 
object, as it might alarm the guests. This is a drink 
case. The man in the next room is an American mil- 
lionaire. He has to be guarded night and day. He has 
tried to commit suicide twice. The family have gone 
to the theatre. The nurse has left him for a minute — 
she thinks he is asleep. Hush !” 

A man of about fifty, with wild eyes and features that 
told their terrible tale, came creeping stealthily from 
the inner room. He had on a long dressing-gown, and 
as he walked he trod on the front of it and stumbled. 

He put out his hand and grasped a chair to steady 
himself. 

For a moment he stood trembling and gasping. Then, 


32 


THE DEVIL IN lONBON 


glancing nervously around, he went to the table on 
which the remains of the feast were scattered. 

Muttering incoherently he picked up glass after glass 
in which a few dregs of wine remained. 

When the glasses were emptied he searched every- 
where for more. Suddenly he saw that a liqueur glass 
stood half hidden by a serviette. 

He seized it, looked at it, and saw that a few drops 
of brandy still remained in it. With a shriek of joy 
that was hardly human, he lifted the glass and let the 
few drops of spirit trickle into his mouth. 

Then he shuffled feebly back into the bedroom. 

^^That,’’ said the Devil, ^^is one of the richest men in 
America. He is a dipsomaniac. To drink till he loses 
his reason is all that he cares for in life, and for his 
life’s sake the drink he madly craves for has to be denied 
him. 

'There are several other cases of this kind in the 
Splendid at the present moment. There is one Hursing 
Institution which keeps a staff of forty nurses constantly 
engaged on drink cases in the most fashionable and ex- 
pensive hotels of London.” 

"Enough!” exclaimed Fairfax. "Let us go out into 
the air.” 

The scene he had witnessed, the knowledge he had 
acquired that the curse of the poor had its horde of vic- 
tims hidden away among the splendors of palatial hotels, 
had at once repelled and attracted him. 

"Prince,” exclaimed Fairfax, as they passed out into 
the street, "this accursed thing is the most powerful 
weapon you have in your evil armory. As the madness 


THE SPLENDID HOTEL 


33 


of drink reels in the streets and crowds the dram shops 
of the slums and lies in the gutter, as it stands in the 
police court dock, I know it as all men know it. Show 
me where in its most insidious form it eats a hidden 
canker at the heart of humanity. Let me see the prob- 
lem, not as it figures in the statistics of the police, but 
in all its hidden horror and in all its secret shame. That 
shall be your task to-night.’^ 

^Tt is an easy one,’^ replied the Prince, smiling, ^^and 
I am glad you have selected it for our first journey to- 
gether. There is no branch of my work in London in 
which I am more keenly interested.” 


34 


THE DEVIL IN LONBON 


CHAPTEK III 

THE HIDDEH HOKKOK 

^^This,” said the Prince, as the strange companions 
passed hj the brilliantly lighted Empire, ^^is Leicester 
Square. Here I have several old-established and highly 
profitable foreign agencies. But you know the locality 
pretty well now, I expect.” 

^‘From the outsider’s point of view, yes,” replied Fair- 
fax; ^^but I have no doubt you can give an interesting 
and enlightening evening here on another occasion. I 
have one definite object in view to-night, and it is use- 
less for you to endeavor to lead me away from it.” 

The Prince smiled. ^^Your talisman will prevent 
that,” he replied, genially. can show you a feature 
of my campaign for souls here which is quite as impor- 
tant as the Drink problem ; but, as you say, we can leave 
that for another evening.” 

They crossed the Circus and went along Piccadilly till 
they came to a side street, down which they turned. It 
was a quiet street, and there were several private and 
family hotels in it. 

^^There is a case here that will interest you,” said the 
Prince. ‘^Come with me.” 

Alan Fairfax hesitated. He had the Englishman’s 
reluctance to intrude on the privacy of strangers. 

‘‘You need have no hesitation,” said the Prince. “I 
am going to call here as the representative of a high- 


THE HIDDEH HOKROK 35 

class Home for Inebriates to see if the case is one which 
we can undertake. You are my colleague.” 

Fairfax followed the Prince into the hall, and pres- 
ently the manager of the hotel came to them. 

A word of explanation, and the manager at once be- 
came communicative. 

^Tt is a terrible case,” he said. shall be glad to 
have it out of the hotel, though money is no object with 
the poor lady. Will you come up ?” 

The Prince and Fairfax followed the manager up to 
the first floor, and then into a beautifully appointed sit- 
ting-room. 

^‘The gentlemen you expected,” said the manager, 
showing them in and then retiring. 

A young woman who was sitting by the fire rose at 
once. 

‘T am one of the nurses,” said she. ‘^Mrs. A 

is very bad to-night, and we are both staying on duty 
in case we are wanted. Hurse Hanson is with the 
patient now. She is a little quieter. Will you go 
in ?” 

The young woman opened a door and ushered the 
Prince and his companion into a large bedroom. 

Hurse Hanson came forward. 

^‘You are the gentlemen from the Home ?” she said. 

Then she drew the bed-curtains aside, and Fairfax 
uttered an exclamation of astonishment. 

On the bed lay a young and beautiful woman in an 
exquisite ball dress. A magnificent diamond necklace 
was round her neck and diamonds gleamed and sparkled 
on the bosom of her dress. Her hands were covered with 


36 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


costly rings and superb diamond ornaments were in her 
raven black hair. 

Alan Fairfax, who had expected to see a wreck of 
womanhood, gazed in amazement at the beautiful young 
woman in ball attire, lying apparently in a state of 
stupor on the bed. 

The face in the soft light of the room seemed that 
of a girl with a brilliant complexion of vigorous health. 
It was not till Fairfax looked a little more closely that 
he saw that the face of the woman was painted. 

“IVe had a lot of trouble with her,” said the nurse. 
^^She insists on being dressed like that every evening, 
and on having all her jewels on and being ‘made up,^ 
as she calls it. She has been getting worse and worse 
every day, but to-night she has been dangerous. Some- 
thing offended her, and she caught me by the throat and 
tried to throttle me. This afternoon she tried to get to 
the window and jump out. I am afraid to be alone with 
her, and asked the other nurse to stop with me.” 

“But,” exclaimed Fairfax, “if she is attended night 
and day how does she get the drink to keep her in this 
condition ?” 

The Prince turned to him quickly. 

“My dear colleague,” he said, “when you have had 
as much experience as I with cases of this sort you will 
know that people with money always do get the drink 
they want.” 

“I believe she is quite insane now,” said the nurse. 
“It has gone beyond the drink trouble. It is not a case 
we can look after properly in an hotel.” 

“You are right,” said the Prince, “and it is not a case 


THE HIDDEH HOEKOE 37 

for us. The doctor will probably certify it as a case of 
insanity. I could not receive it in our Home.’^ 

Out in the street Fairfax at once turned to bis com- 
panion. 

^^Who is the lady?’^ he asked; ‘^do you know her 
story 

‘^Of course I do,” replied the Prince. ‘^Sbe is the 
wife of an Englishman who holds a high diplomatic 
position abroad. She has a large fortune of her own. 
Her father and her grandfather drank themselves to 
death. She has inherited the curse and has made no 
eifort to combat it. She appeared twice at a Court func- 
tion abroad in a condition of helpless intoxication. Find- 
ing that she would utterly ruin his career her husband 
separated from her. She has been traveling about alone 
and drinking heavily ever since. She came to London 
two months ago, and there is no doubt that her mind has 
begun to give way. Hone of her relatives will come 
near her. She has £5,000 a year, and that is how she 
gets rid of it.” 

^^Surely her friends would do something ?” exclaimed 
Fairfax. 

‘^Oh, I’m not in the least afraid of what friends will 
do,” said the Prince. ^‘The people who have the drink 
habit tire out every friend they have in the world. I 
will take you to a case where friends have done every- 
thing they could.” 

***** 

They were passing through a fashionable square. At 
the back ran a mews, in which the stables belonging to 
the mansions were situated. 


38 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


Fairfax followed his guide down the mews. They 
stopped in front of a set of stables, and the Prince 
pointed to a light in the room above. 

^^These stables,’^ he said, ^^belong to Mr. X who 

is a man of fortune and a well-known philanthropist. 

Mr. X is upstairs drinking with his coachman ; or 

rather, drinking in his coachman’s room. That is where 
he keeps a plentiful supply of whiskey, and he comes 
here unknown to his wife to indulge his habit. His 
wife believes absolutely that he is a teetotaler. 

^^Mr. X began to drink when he was a child of 

five. He used to sip from the glasses of his father and 
mother. Both of them died of drink, and his brother 
in a fit of delirium, brought on by alcoholic excess, com- 
mitted suicide. 

^^His sister was a woman with strong religious ten- 
dencies. She taught in Sunday-schools. Her favorite 
occupation was reading the Greek Testament. But at 
intervals she would give way to the family failing, and 
lock herself in a room and drink, and drink, and drink* 
One winter night, drinking alone after the family had 
gone to bed, she fell in the fire and was burned to 
death.” 

^Tn all these cases,” exclaimed Fairfax, ^‘the drink 
habit is an inherited disease ?” 

^^Yes ; a disease passed on from generation to genera- 
tion — ^latent for a time, perhaps, and then forced to ac- 
tivity by stress of great temptation. But in these fam- 
ilies the temptation often begins in childhood. There 
are thousands of children who are given alcohol almost 
from their infancy.” 


THE HIDDEN HOEKOK 39 

^^That is horrible. Surely it should be an offense 
against the law to give a child poison 

^Tt is not yet,” replied the Prince, quietly. 

* * * * * 

Alan Fairfax shrank back with an involuntary ex- 
pression of horror. He found himself for the first time 
in a ^^mixed” lodging-house, and the spectacle that met 
his eyes was a shocking one. 

Seated in a close and overheated room, with the smell 
of cooking bloaters mixing unpleasantly with the odor 
of rank tobacco and frowsy garments, were a number of 
men and women of the most degraded type. 

Many of the women had the bloated features and the 
pendulous lips of the chronic inebriate. There were few 
of them who had not black eyes or the marks of recent 
wounds and blows. 

The men were apparently tramps, but one or two of 
them looked like the wreckage of a superior class. 

'V^Tien Alan and his companion entered the women 
began to make coarse, jeering remarks. 

Alan Fairfax looked at the terrible types of woman- 
hood with a loathing that he feared his features might 
betray. 

^Het us go,” he whispered. ^^These unhappy women 
form no part of the hidden problem I am seeking to 
probe. They are the drunken drabs who reel from tav- 
ern to tavern, gutter-bred outcasts who never had a 
chance to be aught but what they are.” 

^^Pardon,” smiled the Prince, “some of the women 
are gutter-born and gutter-bred, and some of them are 
of the professional tramp class, but there are plenty of 


40 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


well-born women here as well. Look at that woman 
with her mud-stained, greasy skirt hanging in rags about 
her. Look at her drink-sodden face, bruised with savage 
blows, scarred by cuts and wounds, the results of fierce 
fights and street ^accidents.’ That woman is the widow 
of an ofiicer in the Indian Army. She draws her pension 
regularly. She and the ruffianly looking fellow sitting 
by her spend it between them in drink in a few days. 
This woman was forty before she ever entered a public- 
house. But she was a drinker before she was twenty.” 

‘^But the men?” exclaimed Fairfax, as he looked as- 
kance at the shocking samples of humanity gathered 
round the red glow of the kitchen fire. ^^They are all 
tramps or hawkers of the curbstone by the look of 
them !” 

‘^By the look of them, yes. But that ragged, miser- 
able-looking fellow was at Eton and Oxford, and the 
tall, gray-haired old man who has all the appearance of 
being in the last stage of drunken destitution is a Mas- 
ter of Arts, and was for many years the editor of an 
old-established and still well-known London newspaper. 

^^Heither of those men was a bar loafer. They soaked 
from their own cellars; they drank themselves to the 
doss-house in a refined and cultured home environment. 

^‘There is another ffiuman document,’ as your realists 
would label him,” said the Prince, directing his com- 
panion’s attention to a man who lay stretched out on a 
form by the fire, and then walking across the kitchen 
and shaking the sleeper to rouse him. 

The man started up with an exclamation of terror. 
His eyes were bloodshot and his face was distorted, and 


THE HIDDEH HOKKOR 41 

as he raised himself Fairfax saw that his limbs twitched 
and trembled as though he had St. Vitus’s dance. 

The Prince took a coin from his pocket and flung it 
on the form. 

^There you are,” he said, curtly. ‘T was told you 
were here, and I wanted my friend to see you.” 

The man uttered a cry of joy that was like the howl 
of a wild beast, and, clutching the coin with his trem- 
bling fingers, staggered out of the doss-house with it. 

^^Come,” said the Prince, ^^you don’t want to stop with 
these people, I imagine?” 

Alan followed the Prince into the street, and they 
saw the man, who was in an advanced stage of delirium 
tremens, give the coin to a woman who was outside a 
public-house, and she took it and went in. 

^^She’s gone to buy him some brandy,” said the 
Prince. “Ho publican would serve him in his condition. 
Do you want to know who he is ?” 

“Yes.” 

“He is a man who has rich and powerful friends. He 

is the son of Mr. , the head of the great banking 

firm. His father gave him up ten years ago. He has 
been sent to the Colonies three times, and each time he 
has got back, and been found in a common lodging house. 

“He has been placed in two high-class inebriate homes, 
and refused to stay in either. He has been in prison; 
he has been locked up a dozen times ; he has been stabbed 
and robbed in drunken brawls ; he has been found sense- 
less in gutters, and on the refuse heaps of stable yards.” 

The young millionaire made no comment. The scene 
he had witnessed appalled him. The name of the de- 


42 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


graded drunkard, whose features haunted him as he 
went out into the air, was familiar to him. The father 
of the doss-house inebriate was his own hanker. He 
trusted his fortune to the father ; the son clutched at a 
shilling with the howl of a wild animal because it meant 
a big gulp of public-house brandy for him. 

***** 

As they walked slowly along the Prince turned to his 
companion. 

‘‘You said that in the den we have just left you did 
not see the hidden problem of the drink habit,” he re- 
marked. “That is true. But you saw what the hidden 
problem often comes to at the finish. Hone of the peo- 
ple you have seen began in the public-house. They be- 
gan in their homes. Some of them never entered a 
public-house until they were chronic inebriates. Thou- 
sands of people die every year of drink who never en- 
tered a public-house in their lives. Ho, my friend, the 
good people who want to wrest my chief weapon from me 
have to do a great deal more than fight me on licensed 
premises. Where shall we go now 

“I have seen enough for to-night,” said the young 
man sadly. “I have learned a terrible truth. Prince; 
but some day this accursed drink habit will cease to be 
a weapon in your hands !” 

“Perhaps,” replied the Prince, smiling; “but I’m 
not worrying. Over five hundred women more or less 
insane have just been turned out of Inebriate Homes by 
a public body, because there is a question of a few shil- 
lings a head for maintenance between that body and the 
Government. Those women are responsible for a total 


THE HIDDEN HOEKOR 43 

of two thousand children, so you see I have no reason to 
be perturbed by what science is doing in the matter.” 

The mocking tone in which the Prince of Darkness 
spoke was lost upon the young millionaire. One ab- 
sorbing idea engrossed his mind at that moment. 

There must be a remedy, he thought, for this terrible 
disease. How better could the spare millions of tho 
world’s wealth-holders be spent than in the glorious 
human service of aiding science to find that remedy ? 
***** 

Near the end of the disreputable byway in the West 
End of London in which the ^^mixed” lodging-house was 
situated, the young millionaire suddenly stopped. 

They were passing a dismal dilapidated building, out- 
side which three or four dissipated-looking women were 
lounging, their backs against the wall. 

One of them, still young and with the remains of good 
looks, was singing huskily and in a maudlin voice a 
sentimental song that had had its vogue at the halls and 
on the streets. 

Over the narrow dark entrance to the dingy building 
there was an old lamp in which a single gas-jet threw 
sufficient light on frosted sides, now a grimy gray, to 
enable the passer-by to read the legend inscribed on it : 
‘^Licensed Lodging-house for Women. Beds 4d. and 
6d. a night.” 

^‘That is a women’s lodging-house,” said Fairfax. 
‘^Are the women outside a fair specimen of those who 
patronize it ?” 

^Wes and no,” replied the Prince. ^^Working girls 
and country girls have to come to these places sometimes 


44 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


because there is no other accommodation for them in 
this great city. There are shelters and places connected 
with missions, of course, but hundreds of women and 
girls do not know of them. If it were possible for any- 
thing to be worse from your point of view than the mixed 
lodging-houses, these women’s houses are.” 

^^And decent, honest girls who are without a home 
have to come to them for a night’s shelter ?” exclaimed 
Fairfax. 

^^Yes. Look, there are two respectable women com- 
ing along now. The old woman who is with them is 
pointing out the house. They have probably asked her 
where they can get a bed for the night.” 

Fairfax looked at the two women who had now come 
into view. 

He recognized the old woman at once. He had last 
seen her begging in Piccadilly Circus at one in the morn- 
ing, when he heard one of the Mission sisters address her 
as Bridget. 

He looked from Bridget to her companions and ut- 
tered an exclamation of surprise. They were the Mis- 
sion Sisters, but were poorly dressed, and evidently seek- 
ing to pass for homeless women. 

‘^Come along, dearie,” mumbled Bridget, addressing 
Sister Angela. ^T’ll see you all right, and take your bed 
tickets for you, so the deputy won’t find out as you ain’t 
used to this sort of thing.” 

The elder Sister seemed to hesitate, and drew Angela 
back. 

‘^Do you think we’d better go ?” she said. “Look at 
those women. It will be a terrible experience,” 


THE HIDDEN HOKROR 


45 


worse for us, Sister, than for the poor girls who 
have no other home. Let ns see for ourselves if what 
we have heard of these places is true. For our work’s 
sake we must know the truth. If we do not go down into 
the abyss, how shall we succor those who lie helpless in 
its depths 

The old woman hobbled up the steps that led to the 
dark passage which was the entrance to the lodging- 
house, and the Sisters followed her in. 

The Prince looked keenly at Fairfax. ^^You have seen 
these ladies before he said. 

Fairfax started. ^^You know that they are ladies 
then! You have penetrated their disguise?” 

^‘You forget there is no disguise from me. You are 
interested in the younger lady. That is natural. She 
is young and beautiful.” 

Fairfax flushed a little, for there was more than a sug- 
gestion of sarcasm in his companion’s tone. 

am interested in both, for I know that they are 
good women, and I am afraid if they are going to pass 
the night in this place it will be a fearful ordeal to them. 
It must be to any refined and gentle-minded woman.” 

The Prince shrugged his shoulders. 

^Whatever they may suffer it is of their own seeking,” 
he said. ^The younger Sister is a brave girl, but she 
will want all her bravery before she comes out of that 
place.” 

am sure she is a brave girl,” exclaimed Fairfax 
enthusiastically; ^^but I wish I could have prevented 
her passing the night in such company as she will meet 
there, if the women outside are a sample.” 


46 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


^^You couldnT have done that. Sister Angela is five- 
and-twentj. She has been working as a Sister of the 
People since she was twenty-one ; and/’ he added, with 
a smile, '^as an enemy I respect her.” 

^^What mission does she belong to? Where is it?” 
as.ked Fairfax, eagerly. 

The Prince laughed. 

'Ts it love at first sight ?” he said ; ^^then there is the 
chance for me to rout an enemy with pleasant weapons. 
If you can persuade Sister Angela to fall in love with 
you and marry her, by all means do. The people I 
dread are those who give personal service. Millionaires’ 
wives, as a rule, have no time for that.” 

‘^Thank you,” replied F airf ax, “for arranging a mar- 
riage for me. But I am not likely to appreciate your 
views on such a question. If I want to find out more 
about Sister Angela, I will do it without your assist- 
ance.” 

“You are quite right,” replied the Prince, dryly. “The 
results of my Matrimonial Agency are generally more 
satisfactory to me than to my clients.” 

Alan Fairfax made no reply, hut took leave of his 
companion, saying that he would summon him again 
when he wanted him. 

He had determined to find out for himself the result 
of Sister Angela’s brave adventure, and to help her in 
every way he could in the noble work she was doing for 
suffering and neglected womanhood. 



SISTEK AE-QELA 


47 


CHAPTEE IV 
SISTEK AISTGELA 

At five o^clock in the morning Alan Fairfax was on 
his way across London, hound for the street in which 
he had seen Sister Angela and her companion enter the 
Women’s Lodging-house. 

He had returned to the hotel after leaving the Prince, 
changed his clothes, and gone out again. 

He was tired, but he had been afraid to lie down for 
fear sleep would get the better of him, and he might not 
wake in time to carry out the plan that he had fully 
made up his mind to put into execution. 

He had some hours to fill in before he took up his post 
of observation near the lodging-house. 

He had gone to Covent Garden, but the scene was not 
yet lively or interesting. The lumbering of the great 
wagons as they arrived, and the unloading in the gloom 
of the night only depressed him and made it more diffi- 
cult for him to keep awake. 

But as he stood under the piazza meditating as to 
where he should go to fill in the time, an American 
whose acquaintance he had made at the Splendid passed 
him, and recognizing him turned and spoke to him. The 
newcomer was a gentleman interested in theatrical en- 
terprises in the States, and Fairfax had found him a 
pleasant conversationalist in the smoking-room late at 
night. 


48 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


When the American found that Fairfax had no par- 
ticular object in view, he invited him to come with him 
to join some friends who were having a little festivity 
at a well-known hotel, which was a favorite one with 
American and foreign professionals. 

‘^There’ll be some good company in the American bar 
if you like to come,” he said, ^^and you’ll be amused. 
Some of the men from our side who are in the business 
are giving an informal supper to the ladies and gentle- 
men of ‘The Bowery Belle’ Company. It’s quite free 
and easy and Bohemian, and all that sort of thing, and 
you’ll be amused if you care to put in an hour.” 

Fairfax thought he might as well see life in the Amer- 
ican bar of a London hotel at 2 a. m. as wander aim- 
lessly about the streets, so he cordially accepted the 
invitation. 

The American bar of the Eiffel was a feature of the 
big establishment. It was open nearly all night for the 
convenience of the guests of the house, the late and early 
arrivals. 

There were a certain number of tables reserved for 
late suppers, and on festive occasions the restaurant side 
of the bar was in full swing till three or four o’clock in 
the morning. 

The fact that some of the ladies and one or two of the 
comedians who had made a huge success in “The Bow- 
ery Belle” were being entertained by American men 
well known in theatrical circles had attracted some of 
the other male guests of the hotel, and among the com- 
pany sitting about in the big artistically arranged room, 
with a bar at the end of it, at which white-jacketed at- 
tendants were preparing fancy drinks with marvelous 


E little supper was served at seperate 
tables, in little embrasured compartments. 





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* :>' x ^ t-:^ ■';- .>'‘'^ 

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SISTEE Al^^GELA 


49 


speed and dexterity, were a famous American jockey, 
a couple of American newspaper men, the husband of a 
lady fulfilling a special engagement at a palace of vari- 
ety, a famous New York lawyer, and three or four 
wealthy sportsmen well known on the English and 
American Turf. 

The chorus ladies of ^^The Bowery Belle” were very 
bright and very charming, and the little supper to which 
they had been invited by friends of the management was 
served at separate tables, mostly in the little embrasured 
compartments which ran along the sides of the room. 

But the conversation and the merriment were private, 
and the uninvited guests who had come in ^^because the 
bar was open” sat and looked on and smoked and drank 
in silence, not being included in ^^the party.” 

Fairfax, being a friend of a gentleman well known 
to the hosts, was invited to join the inner circle. 

Everything that was said, no matter how trivial, was 
looked upon as a good joke, for the company were in 
high spirits. The supper was excellent, the champagne 
flowed freely, and the frank Bohemian spirit of the 
stage hovered with widespread wings over the scene. 

Alan Fairfax could, as a rule, accommodate himself 
to his surroundings with the ease that comes of traveled 
independence and a light heart, but sitting at two o’clock 
in the morning in the American bar of the Eifiel, with 
the joyous cries of merry girls and the laughter of light- 
hearted men of the world ringing around him amid the 
popping of champagne corks, his mind wandered far 
away from the flower-decked tables, laden with ex- 
pensive delicacies, to a gloomy by-street, and again and 


50 


THE DEVIL IlST LOHDOH 


again he thought of the brave Sisters of the People ly- 
ing in darkness and discomfort in the wretched lodging- 
houses where their companions were, many of them 
poor, lost wretches from whom every fair attribute of 
womanhood had been trampled out. 

He wondered if any of the women in that dreadful 
lodging-house had ever had their gay hours of homage 
and luxury such as the Bowery girls were now enjoying. 

At last the contrast of the scene he was witnessing 
with that on which his imagination was dwelling be- 
came too painful. The laughter rang hollow in his 
ears. The bright babble, the sparkle of gems, the musi- 
cal clink of the glasses filled high with golden wine, the 
fruit, the flowers, the clatter and clang of the brightly 
decorated bar, the ring of sovereins on the counter, the 
tossing of banknotes on to the silver salvers of the ob- 
sequious waiters, began to irritate him. He almost re- 
proached himself with an act of disloyalty to Sister 
Angela in taking part in the gay gathering, and he made 
an excuse to his friend and went away. 

As he went up the corridor the laughter of the merry 
party followed him. It was in his ears as he went out 
into the night. It was in his ears when two hours later 
he set forward toward the lone land of his pilgrimage, 
and it seemed to him that he was passing from the high 
revels on the summit of the Venusberg and descending 
into the dark valley where the tortured spirits of the 
lost were working out their doom. 

***** 

As Alan Fairfax, at five o’clock, strolled leisurely 
along through the quiet and deserted streets of the West, 
by long lines of fast-closed shops and terraces of houses 


SISTEE AE'GELA 51 

with their drawn blinds, all silent as the grave, the 
silence seemed to him almost a cruel one. 

For the influence of the gray dawn was upon him, and 
his mind was filled with the memory of the scenes he 
had witnessed while the pall of night lay over London. 
It seemed to him that the dumbness of the West was 
the dumbness of heartless indifference. 

A few workmen passed him as he went along. Some 
of them were carrying their food for the day wrapped 
in a red handkerchief. 

He saw a group of laboring men come up a side 
street of little houses, with a block of artisans^ dwell- 
ings in the centre of it, and he turned down it, thinking 
he might see some signs of the world of work waking 
to the life of the day. 

A miserable, half-starved looking old man was 
turning over a heap of loose refuse with a stick, and 
every now and then thrusting an empty tin into his 
wallet. 

Fairfax stopped for a moment, and asked him what 
use the battered tins were to him. The old man replied 
surlily that he was a toy maker, and used the tin in his 
trade. ^Tf I had to pay for it,” he growled, couldn’t 
make the toys at the price.” 

Sitting a little way up on the stone stairway of a 
block of dwellings he saw three children huddled up to- 
gether — a girl of ten or eleven and two little boys of six 
and seven. The children were sleepy, and had crept 
close to each other for warmth. 

^ AVhy are you out so early ?” asked F airf ax, wonder- 
ing that the little ones should have nothing better than a 


62 


THE DEVIL m LONDON 


doorstep to rest on at five in the morning. ^^Where’s 
your mother 

^^Mother’s in the pit-hole,” said the little girl, lifting 
a white face to her questioner, ^^and father locks us out 
when he goes to work, ’cus we shouldn’t break things, 
and we stop here till it’s time to go to school.” 

“But where do you get your meals?” 

The little girl produced something from under her 
arm wrapped up in a newspaper. She undid the paper, 
and showed the young millionaire half a dozen slices of 
bread and margarine. 

“We’ve got our dinner,” she said, “and we shall have 
something along of father when he comes back at six 
to-night.” 

The three children had to go thirteen hours with a 
few slices of bread and margarine between them. 

“But you get a free dinner at the school ?” 

The little girl shook her head sadly. “No, sir, we 
used to, but somebody came round and told father that 
he ought to feed his own children when he could afford 
to back ’osses every day. So now we have to say as we 
get plenty to eat at home, elst father says he’d be took 
up. But it ain’t father’s fault, sir,” added the girl, 
fearing that she had perhaps said too much to a 
stranger. “You see, he don’t hardly ever back a win- 
ner.” 

Alan Fairfax gave the child a silver coin, at which 
she stared in astonishment, and walked away. He won- 
dered if it became law that the children were to be fed 
from the rates, and the circumstances of parents allow- 
ing their children to receive free meals were to be in- 


SISTEE ANGELA 


53 


quired into with a view to punishing the neglectful 
ones, how many hungry children would have to go with- 
out food and lie in order to save their parents from fine 
and imprisonment. 

***** 

In the byway of the doss-house there were not many 
people out and about at six in the morning. It seemed 
to Fairfax, as he watched the Women’s Lodging-house 
from the top of the street, that this must be its most 
peaceful hour. He was right. The men who hang 
about the big markets in the early morning looking for 
odd jobs start out at four. At six they have not re- 
turned, and the tramps and vagrants, and the hawkers 
who only make a pretence of hawking in order to evade 
a charge of begging are not early risers. They lie in 
bed as long as the deputy of the house will let them, and 
when they are turned out of the sleeping rooms they 
come down and finish their slumbers on the forms in the 
kitchen. 

Alan Fairfax watched the doorway of the Women’s 
Lodging-house as intently as if he had been a detective, 
only moving a little way when he thought some one pass- 
ing by was regarding him suspiciously. 

Seven o’clock came and eight o’clock, and there was 
no sign of Sister Angela or her companion. 

Still he waited on. Just before nine he saw old 
Bridget come out. She hobbled along the street to the 
corner and turned into a public-house. 

Fairfax waited till the old woman, having had her 
morning dram, came out of the bar, and then he went 
up to her and spoke to her. 


54 


THE DEVIL m LOI^TDOlSr 


^^Where are the two women you took into the lodg- 
ing-house last night he said. 

Bridget stared at the well-dressed stranger. 

^^How do you know anything about them she asked 
in the broken wheezy voice of the habitual drain drinker. 
‘^Are you from the Mission 

^^1^0, but I am interested in its work. Are the Sis- 
ters still in yonder V’ 

^Hor’ love you, no!” replied the old crone with a 
thick chuckle. ^^They was up and out afore five o’clock, 
and I don’t blame ’em. They’d had enough of it. Mad 
Maggie was in the room. She was a hit on last night, 
and when she’s on she’s a ’ot un. You want to be pretty 
old at the game, I can tell you, to stand Mad Maggie’s 
goings on when she ’as ’em had. And there was a fight 
as well. Long Loo had her boots pinched from under 
her piller, and swore it was Dark Alice. They had a 
set-to, and clawed each other like two wild cats, and 
the depity she comes up cussin’ and swearin’ to stop the 
row, and Long Loo went for her with a ’at pin. And 
four o’clock in the morning, too — with everything quiet 
outside I It’s a wonder as the slops didn’t come in, with 
some of the women as ain’t been brought up to that sort 
o’ thing, like me, a-screaming ^Murder !’ ” 

^^And this — this scene took place in the room where 
the Sisters were sleeping?” 

^^Yes. I told ’em not to worrit, as it was nothing out 
of the way, and nobody would ’urt ’em if they didn’t 
jine in, but they was up and off afore five, and I don’t 
think as they’ll want to try what a ^Maids’ Lodgin’ 
’Ouse,’ as they’re called, is like again in a hurry. 


SISTEK ANGELA 


55 


told ’em when they asked me to make it right for 
’em as they’d be sorry, but Sister Angela would come, 
and she’s alius a kind word for me, so I helped her, you 
see.” 

^^And they have gone home ? Do you know where 
Sister Angela lives?” 

The old woman eyed Fairfax suspiciously. 

^^Oh, I thought as you knew ’em?” 

‘^1 said I knew their work. Where do these ladies 
live ?” 

dunno. All I knows is the Mission where they 
works, ’cus Sister Angela’s alius botherin’ me to come 
in and be saved. But, bless you, it ’ud take a dozen 
missions to save me. I’m past it, and, besides, it’s tee- 
total, and that ’ud be the death of me at my time o’ life. 
I wouldn’t mind dying to-morrer, but not that way. 
You might as well drownd yourself and take your cold 
water all at once, and get it over quick.” 

Fairfax let the garrulous old crone maunder on, 
hoping that she might unwittingly give him the in- 
formation he wanted. 

But when she stopped it was only to ask him to give 
her the price of a quartern, so in his anxiety he put the 
case plainly to her. 

^^Where is the Mission?” he said. ^^Tell me — and 
if I find you have spoken the truth I will meet you here 
or anywhere you like to-night and give you a sovereign.” 

^^A sovereign ! — not ’ere, gentleman — ^not ’ere,” 
gasped Bridget, looking round nervously. ‘^Why, if 
it was known ’ere as I’d got a Jimmy-o’-Goblin I’d be 
murdered in my bed for it. Piccadilly Circus is my 


56 


THE DEVIL m LOI^DOlSr 


regular place most nights — that’s where Sister Angela 
got to know me. I gets my doss-money there. The 
ladies is generally good for a copper if I follers ’em up 
long enough. They don’t want me ’anging after ’em, 
and they give me a copper to get rid of me. Will you 
give me the money at the Circus to-night if I tell you 
where the Mission is, as Sister Angela and Sister Em’ly 
come from ? They’re alius there of a afternoon. They 
have meetings and teas and things like that, you know.” 

‘‘Tell me the address, and I’ll give you a sovereign 
to-night.” 

“All right ! You’ve got a ’onest face and a ’andsome 
face, and I’ll trust you.” 

Old Bridget felt in her pocket and drew out a piece 
of soiled and crumpled paper. 

“There it is,” she said, handing the paper to Fair- 
fax; “she writ it herself for me for fear as I’d forget 
it, hoping as one day I’d come and be saved.” 

Alan Fairfax took the paper and read what was writ- 
ten on it. 

Then he folded it carefully and put it in his waistcoat 
pocket. 

***** 

At four o’clock that afternoon while Sister Angela 
was in one of the rooms of St. Ethelbert’s Mission Hall, 
a quiet, unostentatious-looking building in Bloomsbury, 
making preparations for her “Working Girls’ Club,” 
the doorkeeper came to her and said that a gentleman 
was anxious to have a few words with Sister Angela and 
Sister Emily. 

“Sister Emily is in the sewing-room,” she said ; “ask 


SISTER ANGELA 57 

her to come to me first, and then you can bring the gen- 
tleman in.” 

A minute or two later Alan Fairfax entered the club- 
room a little nervously, and found Sister Angela and 
Sister Emily together. 

They received him with the cordial welcome always 
extended by Mission Sisters to strangers, whether ill 
or well clad, rich or poor, in need of assistance or eager 
to help, and their smiling welcome at once put the young 
millionaire at his ease. 

‘T hope,” he said, ^^you won’t think that I am intrud- 
ing, but I have heard that you are interested in lodging- 
houses for women.” 

'^Oh, yes,” answered Sister Angela eagerly, for some- 
thing told her that the young man was in sympathy with 
the work of the Mission. ^^We had heard some terrible 
stories of these places from some of the girls who have 
come to us in despair, and now we know them to be true. 
We have had personal experience.” 

Fairfax hesitated. It was on his tongue to say 
know,” but he feared that the Sisters might misinter- 
pret his explanation. So he merely repeated the words, 
^‘Personal experience ?” 

^‘Yes, we passed last night in one. It has been my 
idea for months past to learn what these lodging-houses 
really are, and last night we had the opportunity. What 
we saw has made us determined to do all that is in our 
power to remedy such an evil state of things. There 
ought to be respectable lodging-houses in every part of 
London, where friendless girls willing to pay could get 
shelter at night without being forced to mix with de- 


58 


THE DEVIL IN LOHDOH 


praved and abandoned women of the lowest class. What 
we heard and what we saw last night, the foulness, the 
vileness, the horror of it, we shall remember all our 
lives, and in that house there were two or three honest 
working women. It is monstrous that in a great and 
wealthy and well governed city like London the only 
homes for homeless working girls, or poor girls out of 
employment, should be houses of a character so notori- 
ous that the police look upon every woman who lodges in 
one as a woman of bad character.’’ 

^Tt is indeed monstrous,” exclaimed Fairfax, with a 
ring of honest indignation in his voice. am a young 
man and a stranger to you, but I have learned something 
about these horrors. I think that the establishment of 
decent lodging-houses for honest girls in need of shelter 
would be a social service of the most practical kind.” 

^^Oh, how I wish we could start one in connection 
with the Mission ! But we have no funds, and money 
is so difficult to get — now.” 

have heard so,” said Fairfax; “and that is why 
I want to help. I am a rich man, anxious to do a little 
good. Will you accept this from me in aid of your 
work ? It is a donation toward the establishment of a 
lodging-house for women in connection with your Mis- 
sion.” 

He took his pocketbook from his pocket, opened it, 
and handed Sister Angela an envelope. 

“Open it when I am gone,” he said. Then he bowed 
to the Sisters, and left them before either had time to 
say more than a simple word of thanks. 

When the door had closed on their visitor Sister An- 


SISTER ANGELA 


59 


gela opened the envelope, examined its contents, and ut- 
tered a cry of joy. 

^^Look! look!” she cried. ^Tt is a cheque for five 
thousand pounds !” 

^^Five thousand pounds I” Sister Emily took the lit- 
tle slip of paper, and gazed at it in astonishment. 

^^Yes; isn’t it wonderful? I prayed — oh, how I 
prayed — ^last night in the midst of the horrors that we 
lay and listened to that I might one day be able to do 
something to save poor women from a place like that, 
and now ” 

As she spoke she noticed for the first time that there 
was a little scrap of paper in the envelope. 

She took it out, and looked at it with a puzzled air. 

It was the scrap of paper she had given to old Bridget 
with the address of the Mission on it. 

On the back of the paper there was something written 
in a man’s hand : 

^^The enclosed cheque is for the purpose of establish- 
ing a lodging-house, and the donor hopes that it will be 
known as ‘Sister Angela’s Hostel for Women.’ ” 

Sister Angela’s fair face flushed with joy, and the 
tears came into her eyes. 

“Alan Fairfax!” she murmured, as she looked at the 
signature to the check. “God bless you, Alan Fairfax, 
for your noble deed !” 


60 


THE DEVIL IN lONBON 


CHAPTEK V 
THE DEVIHS ACKE 

Alan Fairfax dined at the Splendid, and made up his 
mind to spend a quiet evening in his own rooms. 

He sat and smoked in his room after dinner and 
dreaming dreams, he compared himself to those astute 
invaders of a foreign country who succeed in gaining 
admittance to the strongholds of an enemy, and there 
learning the secrets which will be valuable knowledge 
when the day of struggle comes. 

am making a map of the Devihs Domain,” he said 
to himself, smiling at the idea, ‘^and the Devil is help- 
ing me to do it.” But the smile that the little conceit 
had brought with it faded quickly. 

His guide had been frankness itself, and had shown 
how lightly he held many of the campaigns waged 
against him by brave men and women who had spent 
their whole lives in endeavoring to make the world’s 
evil less. 

‘They mean well, many of your campaigners who 
take the field against me,” the Prince had said to him, 
“but they are like your legislators. They are constantly 
making elaborate arrangements for the good of the peo- 
ple without a full knowledge of the conditions which 
govern the lives of those they are anxious to benefit. 
***** 

“The little knowledge which is a dangerous thing is 


THE DEVIL’S ACKE 


61 


as dangerous in those who work in the Halls of West- 
minster as it is in those who work in the slums of White- 
chapel. Your legislators and your social reformers are, 
many of them, like the good-natured hear who dropped 
a heavy stone on his sleeping master’s face in order to 
kill the flies that were annoying him. The intention 
is excellent, hut the recipients of the kind service are 
more injured than helped by it.” 

As he thought of the Prince’s mocking words, the 
young man became sad. Then the sweet smiling face 
of Sister Angela as she accepted his offer of help in 
her noble scheme rose before him and the gloomy 
thoughts vanished as the mist melts in the morning 
sun. 

He had intended to pass an idle, comfortable even- 
ing. But now he was eager to be up and doing. He 
no longer felt the effects of the long night he had passed 
without sleep. 

He would go out again and see another phase of the 
Devil’s work in London. He had seen the hidden hor- 
rors of the drink curse, and he had made up his mind 
to get into touch with the scientists who were making 
a special study of that which they believed to be a dis- 
ease. Men had come forward with vast sums for the 
support of research into the cause and cure of cancer. 
He would give up a portion of his wealth to aid research 
into the cause and cure of inebriety, a disease as ruth- 
less and a hundred times more far-reaching in its effects 
than any the world has yet known. 

His second journey into the Devil’s Domain had 
shown him what a noble service might be rendered to 


62 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


womanhood. To-night he would summon his guide and 
go forth again with him and learn. 

Where should he go with him ? He stood for a mo- 
ment thinking, and mechanically picked up an evening 
paper that lay upon the table. 

A headline at once arrested his attention. 

Under the headline he read an account of the death 
of a young clergyman who had died worn out with the 
fierce fight he had waged for souls in a district in the 
West End of London, which was known as ^^The DeviLs 
Acre.” 

***** 

^This,” said the Prince to the young millionaire, as 
they turned out of a busy thoroughfare into a long 
gloomy street, ^fis the commencement of the dis- 
trict which you are pleased to call my ^Acre.’ It 
is certainly one of my great centres of industry, but 
there are a good many other ^Acres’ in London, 
which are fully qualified to dispute its title with 
it.” 

^Terhaps this is the most notorious,” suggested Fair- 
fax. 

‘^Yes, perhaps it is. That is because it contains a 
large and congested criminal population. That brings 
it into prominence in police reports, and causes it to 
figure freely in the Old Bailey calendar. But this is 
by no means my favorite district, you know. It makes 
very little demand upon my energies. From my point 
of view it practically runs itself.” 

Alan Fairfax looked about him and saw only a long 
ordinary road with little shops on either side of it. 


THE DEVIL’S ACKE 63 

^^This is not a criminal street he said : ^^there seem 
to be plenty of respectable tradespeople here.” 

^^Ob, yes, there are plenty of respectable people in 
the district, and some good middle-class people still cling 
to the better parts of it.” 

^^You say that your acre ^runs itself.’ What do you 
mean 

mean that the criminal population have very little 
chance to be anything else. The children are horn in 
an environment of evil. They are brought up in an 
atmosphere of lawlessness and crime. Some of the 
streets here are almost entirely inhabited by criminals. 
We will go into a street in which there is hardly a fam- 
ily that has not one or other of its members in jail.” 

They had reached a side turning, near the middle of 
which was a small and anything but brilliantly lighted 
public-house. 

The Prince, telling Alan to follow him, entered the 
house and walked through the private bar into a room 
at the hack. 

The room was empty, and when the Prince had or- 
dered two drinks he drew his companion’s attention to 
the fact that there was a mirror hanging above the man- 
telpiece in which it was possible to see every one who en- 
tered the bar. 

^There is a reason for the mirror being there which 
you may guess,” he said. ^^Sitting in this room you 
can see the faces of every one who comes into the house. 
It also reflects the bar, which is regularly ^used’ by a 
little gang, all of whom, in the expressive language of 
the police, ‘have time behind them.’ 


64 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


^^The first place one of the gang coming out of prison 
makes for is that bar. He comes to find some of his 
old pals who will bring him up to date in professional 
matters, and tell him who is out and who has ^gone in- 
side.’ 

^^Do you see the man in the corner — the dark, thick- 
set man with a muffler round his neck ? He is asking 
his companion, who is a professional burglar, if There 
is a job on.’ He has just finished a long sentence and 
is out on license. 

“These men will tell you that they have to live, and 
they can only earn their living by the work at which 
they are skilled — that is, thieving and housebreaking. 
The system of turning convicts Tn license’ loose in their 
old haunts keeps them criminals all their lives. The 
moment they return they meet their old companions, 
and the only opportunities of Vork’ they get are offers 
of a job in their old line of business.” 

“The system is wrong,” said Fairfax, “at least it 
seems so to me. It is as senseless as sending a woman 
from a home for the cure of inebriates into a public- 
house, and expecting her not to take to drink again.” 

“You are right,” replied the Prince, with a little 
laugh, “but the authorities who have to do with the 
criminal classes think otherwise. I am quite content 
with the present system. But the men here are old 
hands, seasoned professionals who have been in and out 
of prison all their lives. Come and see the criminal in 
the making. It is an interesting sight.” 

They left the public-house, and after turning down 
a brightly lighted thoroughfare came into a gloomy 


THE DEYIUS ACRE 


65 


street again. Many of the little shops were shut. There 
were some still open, and these were lighted by a single 
jet or an oil lamp. The effect was Rembrandtesque, 
but anything hut suggestive of thriving business. 

Presently they came to a shop which presented a 
gayer appearance. It was a sweetstuff shop, and in the 
window were a variety of sweets labeled with odd names, 
jam puffs, and cakes and pastry of various kinds. Lem- 
onade and ginger-beer bottles were also in evidence. 

There were two or three lads and a couple of girls 
sitting at a small table. All the lads and both the girls 
were smoking cigarettes. 

^^This is a sweetstuff shop, as you see,” said the 
Prince, ‘^and there is nothing peculiar about it.” 

‘^Hothing,” replied Fairfax, ^^except the young girls 
smoking cigarettes. That is not usual at a pastry 
cook’s.” 

^^Ho ; hut if you want to see what sort of a place this 
really is, we will have to peep into a long room at the 
back.” 

^^Peep into ?” 

^^Yes, if we went into the room itself we shouldn’t 
see much. Everything would stop. The proprietor of 
the establishment and the company would take us for 
police in plain clothes.” 

^^How shall we manage it, then ?” 

^^You can leave it to me. You see I know this place 
and its ways. It is a business I am very much inter- 
ested in.” 

An old woman was serving the customers in the shop. 
As they looked through the window Fairfax noticed 


66 


THE DEVIL IN lONBON 


that a tall, rough-looking man came through the cur- 
tained door and took cakes and tarts and bottles of gin- 
ger beer and went back with them. 

‘‘That’s the man I want to see for a minute,” said 
the Prince. “He’s a receiver, and does a big trade with 
boy thieves.” 

The Prince caught hold of a lad who was just going 
into the shop and put a coin in his hand. 

“Tell the governor a gentleman wants to speak to 
him outside,” he said. 

In a minute the man Fairfax had noticed came to 
the door and looked at the strangers, eyeing them sus- 
piciously. 

The Prince went to him and said something in a low 
voice. The man nodded and went back again. 

“Come round to the back,” said the Prince, and Fair- 
fax followed him. 

At the back of the shop there was a narrow lane with 
sheds and outhouses in it. There were yards at the 
back of the house with a wooden door in the low 
wall. 

To this the Prince went, and presently it was opened 
hy “The Governor.” 

“Come in,” he said ; “there’s nobody in the kitchen.” 

Fairfax followed the man through the yard, and they 
went into a small, untidy room. 

In the partition, which divided the kitchen from a 
room beyond, was a window. The lower half of the 
window was covered by a dirty red curtain. 

“You can keep an eye on the room through that,” 
said the Prince to Fairfax, “while I and ‘The Governor’ 


THE DEVIUS ACRE 67 

do our business. If you see a grown-up come in give 
us the tip at once.” 

The two men then conversed together in a low voice, 
and it seemed to Fairfax that they were haggling about 
the price to be paid for something. But when he had 
lifted the corner of the curtain he gave no further at- 
tention to the conversation. 

He was looking into a room filled with lads and young 
girls. They were sitting at little tables with ^^refresh- 
ments” in front of them — all were smoking cigarettes 
— ^the girls as well as the boys. At some of the tables the 
lads and girls were playing with penny packs of cards, 
little piles of coppers in front of them. On one 
table, which seemed to be the best patronized, there 
was a board, on different portions of which the 
youthful patrons of the sweetstuff shop were staking 
money. 

A young man, whose features bore a strong resem- 
blance to those of the proprietor, waited till the money 
was on, and then caused something in the centre of the 
board to spin round. 

There was a babel of voices, and every now and then 
Fairfax caught the sound of oaths. The language that 
reached him when a boy or a girks voice was raised 
above the babel was utterly vile. 

Some of the lads had an arm round a girks waist or 
round her neck. 

He had never seen such a scene, he had never dreamed 
that such a scene was possible in the heart of London. 
It was a gambling den for lads and girls, with sugges- 
tion of evil even worse. The majority of the lads 


68 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


seemed to be between sixteen and seventeen, but some 
of them were younger. Most of the girls were appar- 
ently under sixteen. 

A sudden movement at one of the tables and the quick 
gathering of a little crowd around it riveted Fairfax’s 
attention. 

He saw a big lad strike one of the girls a heavy blow 
in the face. The girl staggered back, and then, with a 
swift movement of her hand, drew a long pin from her 
hat and flew at her aggressor. The boy seized her wrists, 
and the crowd of boys and girls spread out into a circle 
to enjoy the fight. 

But the noise and the shouting had attracted the at- 
tention of ^^The Governor.” With an oath he sprang 
up, flung open a door that communicated with the room, 
and rushed at the combatants, abusing them in foulest 
language for their conduct. 

^Tf you have seen enough,” said the Prince to Fair- 
fax, ‘^now is the time to go.” 

^^How can the police allow such vile places as these 
to exist?” asked Fairfax, as he and his companion came 
out into the back lane. 

‘^They won’t when they find out that gambling is go- 
ing on; but unless one of the lads or one of the girls 
‘gives information,’ how are the police to know ? 

^^Before a grown-up person could pass the counter 
to go into the big room the alarm would be given, and 
there wouldn’t be a sign of anything improper for the 
intruder to take note of. But it’s quite likely the fight 
to-night may lead to the closing of the place. The girl 
may take her revenge by giving information about the 


'J^HE girl, with a swift movement drew a long 
pin from her hat and flew at her aggressor. 


Page 68 




u^;-, 






THE DEVIL’S ACEE 


69 


gambling, or one of the boys may be captured by the 
vicar, who has a lads’ club, and if he ^splits’ the authori- 
ties will very soon be put on the scent.” 

They had come into a road with broad pavements, 
and Fairfax noticed that gangs of rough lads were pa- 
rading it and hustling the lads and girls who were com- 
ing in an opposite direction. Many of the girls were 
roughly used. Fairfax noticed one gang of youths stop 
girl after girl and attempt to kiss her. One or two of 
the girls screamed and laughed, but some of them strug- 
gled and fought. 

^^That’s nothing,” said the Prince, as Fairfax re- 
marked on the scandalous behavior of the young hooli- 
gans. ‘‘There are parts of this district where it is not 
safe for any woman to walk alone after dark. Some 
of the quiet lads who do not belong to any of the gangs 
get a bad time, too, if they venture down certain 
streets.” 

“These gangs of lawless lads seem to be a feature of 
the place.” 

“Yes, the district is notorious for them. Some of 
them come from the criminal streets, but a good many 
are merely lads who have evenings free and nothing to 
do. They have homes of the kind that offer them no 
inducement to stop in them. They are beyond parental 
control — in fact, for many of them such a thing never 
existed — and they have dropped into street life directly 
they were over school age. The good people who are 
busy with my affairs call this phase of London life ‘The 
problem of the boy of fourteen.’ There is a problem 
of the girl of fourteen, too, but this has not attracted 


YO 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


much attention. As a matter of fact, many of the girls 
are nearly as bad as the boys.’’ 

^^And these are our future citizens?” exclaimed Fair- 
fax. 

The Prince laughed. ^^Yes, I suppose they are, but 
a good number of them are already citizens, in the sense 
that they are already the fathers and mothers of future 
citizens themselves.” 

^^They marry young here, then?” 

‘‘Yes, marry — or contract irregular unions. In the 
criminal streets you will find girl mothers with their 
‘husbands’ already in prison.” 

“But the peril to the young of an environment like 
this must have been recognized,” urged Fairfax, for- 
getting in his interest in the problem that his guide 
was not likely to be sympathetic on the subject. “There 
must be good people who have sought to mitigate the 
evil?” 

“Oh, yes,” said the Prince, lighting a cigarette. 
“There are missions here where efforts are made to at- 
tract the girls to what is called ‘wholesome amusement’ 
and recreation, and there is a Lads’ Club, which is un- 
derstood to have done a great deal of good. That is the 
Lads’ Club, the house opposite that looks like a disused 
public-house.” 

“Let us go in and see it.” ^ 

“You can go in if you like,” said the Prince, smiling. 
“I’ll wait outside and smoke. These Lads’ Clubs have 
no attraction for me.” 

Alan Fairfax pushed open the door of the club and 
entered. The manager came forward and greeted him 


THE DEVIUS ACKE 


71 


politely, and Fairfax explained that he was a stranger 
to the neighborhood, but was interested in Lads’ Clubs. 
Would the manager let him go over the place, and tell 
him something about it? 

^^With pleasure,” was the reply. ^^We have several 
hundred lads, and many who use the club nightly. They 
can smoke here, play bagatelle, read books and periodi- 
cals, have coffee and refreshments, and spend a pleasant 
evening where there is no bad language and no hooli- 
ganism, only the spirit of good comradeship. We have 
a miniature rifle range below, a gymnasium, and a 
cricket and football club, and a seaside camp. We take 
a personal interest in all our boys, and if they get out 
of employment we do all that we can to get them in 
again.” 

^‘These boys, I suppose, are a superior class — ^they 
don’t come from the criminal streets ?” 

^^Many of them do, but they are not thieves or bad 
characters themselves. To be a member here a lad must 
be earning a wage honestly. Many of our members 
have brought in others who were what we call ^on the 
street,’ and of these we have made decent, honest, 
straightforward, hard-working lads. It was the street 
that made them bad — the club saved them.” 

Fairfax spent a quarter of an hour in the club, and 
then he went out and joined his companion. 

'H can quite understand that these places have no 
attraction for you,” he said. ^^They are tackling the 
problem of the boy of fourteen, and that is the age at 
which you enlist the members of your cadet corps.” 

The Prince laughed, but it was not a hearty laugh. 


72 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


‘^The clubs are few,” he said; ^The lads of London, 
flung on the streets for their evening’s amusement, are 
as the sands of the seashore. Come, I will take you 
into a street close to this club, in which every house is 
packed — a family in a room — and you won’t find an 
honest man or woman among the lot or a boy or a girl 

who is not trained in criminal ways.” 

***** 

^Tt is a disgrace to a Christian city,” exclaimed Fair- 
fax indignantly, as he left the street of infamy after 
visiting a number of the houses with his guide, who 
entered boldly on the pretence that he was making a 
house-to-house inquiry for the Borough Council. 

‘^The Christian City has put up with it for a good 
long time,” replied the Prince. 

‘‘The astonishing thing to me,” said Fairfax, “is the 
wretched condition of the criminal family. The homes 
are squalid and filthy and poverty-stricken. It would 
pay the people better to be honest.” 

“They have no trade but the one they follow. At 
all others they are unskilled.” 

“Yes,” said Fairfax, “unskilled — that is the word 
that accounts for half the crime in the country.” 

The young millionaire went back to his hotel with 
his own views as to the Problem of the Boy of Four- 
teen. There were two things to which he determined to 
devote his energies — ^the establishment of Lads’ Clubs 
in every part of London, and the rousing of the pub- 
lic conscience to the National necessity of a revival of 
the old system of apprenticeship. 


THE DEVIHS ^^AGEHCT^ 


Y3 


CHAPTEK VI 

THE DEVIHS ‘‘AGEHCY” 

‘^You told me,” said Fairfax, as he left the hotel one 
day at high noon with his guide to see something of the 
hidden side of London by day, ^^that you had agencies 
in the foreign quarter, and I gathered from your tone 
that the results of these agencies were highly satisfac- 
tory — to you. We were passing through Leicester 
Square at the time. I should like to see some of these 
agencies at work.” 

^^Hothing easier,” replied the Prince, ^^and I can 
promise you an interesting experience. But the agen- 
cies are not only in the foreign quarter that lies around 
Leicester Square. I have some of the same character in 
various parts of London. But the theatrical and variety 
centres will be good places to start with.” 

^^Do you mean that your agencies are connected with 
theatrical and variety business?” 

^^Yes, they are quite modest looking places compared 
with the hona fide agencies. A couple of rooms on the 
second floor sufiice for them.” 

They had been directing their steps to Leicester 
Square, and talking as they went. 

They turned up a side street and came into a narrow 
street, almost every shop and house in which seemed 
to be more or less connected with the variety 
world. 


74 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


^^Many of these places are agencies,” said the Prince, 
^Vhich supply the better class halls on the Continent, 
but this is one which is largely connected with cafes 
chantants, where the girls collect money from the audi- 
ence. Come upstairs into the office. I know the princi- 
pal.” 

Fairfax followed his guide up a flight of narrow 
stairs, and entered a small room on the second floor. 
The walls were hung with attractive foreign posters of 
young ladies in gorgeous array singing from a bril- 
liantly illuminated stage to an audience that, from its 
appearance, was a happy blend of nobility and opulence. 
There were among the posters one or two representing 
celebrities of European fame. The professional poster 
gallery was arranged to convey the impression that these 
famous ^Turns” were all on the books of the dark for- 
eign gentleman, with Semitic features, who was the 
head of the establishment. 

Fairfax saw that there was a piano at the side of the 
room, with a pile of music on the top of it, and that a 
rather seedy-looking young man, who was the profes- 
sional ^^accompanist,” was playing, while a good-looking 
young woman was singing one of the popular music 
hall tunes of the day. 

There was a private room beyond the office, and the 
Prince, nodding to the agent, walked into this, inviting 
Fairfax to follow him. 

The door of the private room was left open, and sit- 
ting just inside it, Fairfax could hear and see all that 
went on in the office. 

The girl finished her song, and the agent, who was 


will do, my dear, — that will do very 
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THE DEVIL’S ^^AGENCY” 75 

smoking a cigarette and lolling in an armchair, signified 
his approval mildly. 

^^That will do, my dear — that will do very well. I 
can offer you a good engagement. Can you go to Paris 
to-morrow night? I have several other young ladies 
going. You can all go together, and in Paris you shall 
be met by my partner there.” 

^^And where shall I live ?” 

^^That will be all right, my dear; my partner will 
see to that. You will be at Victoria at 8.80. I shall 
be there to take the tickets and put you right.” 

^^Yes, I can go,” said the girl; ^^but how long is the 
engagement for ?” 

^^Oh, as long as you obey the rules. It’s a very nice 
hall ; only good clients, so they are very particular. You 
will sign, and you are engaged. It is a good chance for 
you. If you turn out all right I shall book you for many 
other halls.” 

The girl glanced at the agreement. It appeared to 
be all right, and she signed it. The terms offered to her, 
£4 a week, seemed to her very good just for singing a 
couple of songs or so every evening. It was a much 
larger amount than she had been earning in the chorus 
of a traveling company. 

When the girl, having signed the agreement and re- 
ceived further instructions, had left, the agent came 
into the private room. 

^^How many girls are you sending off?” asked the 
Prince. 

^^Six,” was the reply. wanted twenty, but there’s 
been a row about a girl in one of the brasseries, and 


76 


THE DEVIL IH LOI^DOH 


it’s got into the London papers, and has rather queered 
business for a week or two.” 

‘Tet my friend see the agreement they sign,” said the 
Prince. 

The agent fetched a copy — he had a case full of them 
on his office table — and handed it to Fairfax. 

The agreement was simplicity itself. For a certain 
sum per week the ^^artist” undertook to sing and dance 
at ^^The Theatre of Varieties” or elsewhere. 

The proprietor of ‘^The Theatre of Varieties” had 
the power of dismissing the artist for lack of skill, for 
failure to please, or for conduct likely to offend the cus- 
tomers. 

^^Have you had any more trouble with the police on 
this side?” asked the Prince. 

The agent laughed. ^^What can they do so long as 
the French police don’t interfere? But the London 
police bother us a good deal when they get com- 
plaints.” 

Fairfax listened, but drew his own conclusions. 
When they left the agency he asked his guide for an 
explanation. 

^^Oh, there’s nothing in it,” said the Prince; “only 
the places that this agency keeps supplied are rather 
free-and-easy, and some of the girls who are sent over 
make a fuss, and then the Scotland Yard people come 
down on our friend here, and if they make themselves 
very objectionable he moves, and perhaps changes his 
name or takes a partner, and only uses his partner’s 
name. There are half a dozen agencies of the same sort 
in this street.” 


THE DEVIL’S ‘^AGEHCY” Y7 

“Let us go into another,” said Fairfax. “I want to 
understand what the business really means.” 

“Certainly — come into this one. My friend here 
does quite a large business in shipping English girls 
to the cafes chantants and brasseries of Paris, Lyons 
and Marseilles.” 

They went into a large room on the ground floor, and 
a stout, bald-headed, thick-set little man looked up from 
his writing-table. 

“My friend here is in the business,” said the Prince. 
“He wishes to take a troupe of dancing girls on the 
Continent — half a dozen, young and good-looking. Can 
you get them for him ?” 

“I’m closing up,” replied the agent; “going abroad 
for a month or two myself.” 

“Trouble ?” 

“Yes, I’ve had the tip, and I’m taking a holiday. 

But my agent, Mrs. , will get the girls for you. 

She can do it safely, and neither the police nor the 
L.C.C. can make a bother. She takes no fee, and so 
she doesn’t come under the new regulations.” 

The Prince smiled, and the agent handed him a 
card. 

“It’s a private house, but Mrs. has some girls 

of her own performing in London, and she gets in with 
girls for the Continental business that way. She’ll get 
you half a dozen in a couple of days. You’d better 
give her my card, and she’ll know it’s all right.” 

There was a tap at the door, and a tall, clean-shaven 
man walked in. 

“I want to see you privately, Mr. 


he said. 


78 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


The agent looked at the newcomer nervously. 

^^All right, sir,” he said. ^^These two gentlemen are 
foreign friends of mine from the Continent. They’ll 
excuse me, I’m sure.” 

^AYe’ll wait in the other room,” said the Prince. 
Fairfax followed him in, and he pushed the door to. 

^^That’s a police officer,” he said. ^^You’ll hear some- 
thing that may enlighten you on the Continental agency 
question.” 

The police officer was evidently not in the least per- 
turbed by the presence in an inner room of strangers 
who might overhear what he had to say. 

^^Mr. ,” he said, ^Ve’ve had another complaint 

about you, and I’ve come to read a statement made to 
us by a young woman named Lilian Vance. She was 
one of eight girls you engaged a month ago for a variety 
theatre in Paris.” 

^^Oh, they tell lies, these girls !” exclaimed the agent. 
^^They come to me and get engagements; they pretend 
to be actresses and they aren’t, and then because they 
don’t get their salaries for doing nothing they make a 
fuss and tell lies.” 

^^There isn’t any lie about this statement,” replied 
the officer. ^^We have communicated with the Paris 
police; they have made inquiries, and inform us that 
the facts are as stated. Listen to what the girl 
says : — 

Two months ago I was told by a woman at the 

Music Hall that girls who could sing and dance 

were wanted for a first-class Hall in Paris. She told me 
what the terms were, and these were so good I thought 


THE DEVIL’S ^^AGEHCY” 79 

I should like to go. She gave me the address of the 
agent in Street, Leicester Square. 

T went to him and was engaged. I was to be one of 
eight English girls who were to appear in a revue. I 

signed the agreement, and two days later Mr. met 

us at the railway station, took our tickets, and saw us 
off. 

T knew two of the girls ; they had been in a troupe 
with me in England. The other five were girls about 
my own age — twenty. That they were quite respectable 
girls I knew from our conversation. 

Tn Paris we were met by the Paris agent, and he 
told us he had taken rooms for us at a hotel. We went 
to the hotel. It was not at all a nice one, and was in a 
narrow side street. We soon saw that it was not a re- 
spectable place. But we had brought very little money 
with us, and we had not enough to go to another hotel 
on our own account. 

Tor a whole week we did nothing, and heard noth- 
ing, except when we went to the agent, who said as we 
had not brought costumes with us we should have to wait 
till they were ready. 

^At the end of the week we had not enough money 
to pay our bill, and the landlord of the hotel said that 
if we wanted any more meals we must pay for them 
before we had them. 

^We went to the agent, and made a fuss, and he 
gave us a sovereign between us. 

^We told him that we would not go back to that 
hotel, as it was not a respectable place. He took us to 
another, which was a little better, and then he told us 


80 


THE DEVIL IH LONDON 


the revue was postponed, and he had got engagements 
for us at a cafe chantant. 

“ ^We went together, and found that we had to ap- 
pear late at night. We did our first turn at midnight, 
and we were expected to remain on the premises and 
come on at intervals till five o’clock in the morning. It 
was an all-night house. 

^After we had sung we had to go and sit in a room 
to which a number of the men clients of the establish- 
ment were admitted. We were told we must drink with 
them. If we didn’t we were breaking our contract, 
which was, to be agreeable to the customers, and we 
should be dismissed without any salary. 

T used to throw my drink away when the men 
weren’t looking. We had a very bad time there, but I 
managed to take care of myself, though the life was 
terrible, and frightened and horrified me. 

^My mother had tried to persuade me not to go to 
Paris, and I was ashamed to write now and tell her the 
sort of place I had got into. 

fortunately for me I became very ill and unable 
to sing or dance. I was feverish, and it was thought 
that I was going to have typhoid, so I was sent to a 
hospital. My illness, however, proved not to be seri- 
ous, and in the hospital they were very kind to me. I 
sent a telegram to my mother, and she sent me the 
money to come home directly I was well. 

f efore I left Paris I learned that four of the girls 
who went with me had been forced into a bad way of 
life. The others had met an English gentleman, told 
him of the dreadful position they were in, and he had 


THE DEVIL’S ^^AGEHCY” 81 

kindly given them the money for their fare and sent 
them home.’ ” 

The agent, who had listened impatiently, brought- 
his fist down on the table angrily. 

^^Ah — the girl has made this up,” he protested. ^^She 
was no good, I tell you. She couldn’t sing or dance, 
and my partner tells me she used insulting language to 
the clients.” 

know the character of the place you sent those 
respectable English girls to, my friend,” said the ofiicer, 
quietly, ^^and so do you. I’ve read you the girl’s state- 
ment that you shall not again pretend ignorance.” 

^^Well,” exclaimed the agent, tapping his fingers im- 
patiently on the table, “I can’t help what happens to the 
girls in Paris. If they can’t take care of themselves 
that’s their fault. I engage artists to sing and dance. 
Look at the contracts. I don’t engage them for any- 
thing else.” 

^^You’ve been carrying on a very bad business with 
these English girls,” said the officer. ^^You knew that 
on the other side they are kept without money and made 
desperate, in order that they may be at the mercy of 
the rascally lot with whom you trade and traffic !” 

^ Well, what are you going to do ?” 

^^That’s the business of my superiors. I’ve said all 
I’ve got to say to you — at present. Good morning.” 

The officer folded the blue paper on which the girl’s 
statement had been written, put it in his pocket, and 
left the foreign ‘^Variety Agent” to his own reflections. 

As the door closed he hurled a volley of oaths after 
bis visitor. 


82 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


The Prince opened the door of the private room, and 
held up his hand. 

^^Don’t put yourself out, my friend,” he said. “They 
may bother you in your business for a little time by 
issuing warnings and keeping observation, but they 
can’t stop you. You supply artists to the Continental 
theatres of variety and concert halls. The French police 
are the only people who could stop your trade — and they 
are not taking any steps in the matter.” 

“You are right,” replied the agent ; “but I don’t want 
a lot of bother with these Scotland Yard fellows. I 

shall move into another street, and start a new firm.” 
***** 

“There are, as I have told you, half a dozen similar 
agencies in this street alone,” remarked the Prince to 
Fairfax, as they walked toward the square. “But the 
two you have seen are fair examples of the general 
run.” 

“It is infamous !” exclaimed the young man. “Many 
of the girls sent into these Continental dens of depravity 
are respectable, hard-working members of an honorable 
profession. It is pitiful to think of these poor girls 
in a strange land, knowing little — perhaps nothing — 
of the language, and being deliberately hounded to their 
ruin by the wretches into whose toils they have fallen !” 

The Prince shrugged his shoulders. 

“I won’t enter into a moral discussion with you,” he 
said. “You wanted to see that phase of my work, and 
I am showing it to you.” 

“That is so,” replied Fairfax, recognizing the futility 
of arguing the matter with his guide. “Tell me, how 


THE DEVIL’S ^^AGENCY” 83 

are the girls attracted to these foreign agencies of 
yours 

‘^Oh, in various ways. Among others, by advertise- 
ment and by touts.” 

‘^By touts?” 

^‘Yes ; would you like to see that part of the system ?” 

‘‘Yes ; the thing is abominable, but I will go through 
with it.” 

They walked along Cranbourn Street and came pres- 
ently to a street in the Strand, in which there is a well- 
known and legitimate dramatic agency. 

“This place is not on my list,” said the Prince, “but 
there are a large number of girls who come here daily 
in search of employment for the chorus of musical com- 
edies. 

“Many of them come day after day, and fail to find 
work. The market is overcrowded. A good many of 
the girls depend upon their earnings for a livelihood. 
Some of them are the sole supports of an invalid mother 
— or invalid father. The touts for the Continental traf- 
fic — mostly women — are always on the look-out for 
girls who, heart-sick with failure here, may listen 
eagerly to the chance of an engagement abroad. Do you 
see that well-dressed woman with a little group of 
three girls? The girls show by their faces that they 
are getting weary of trying for an engagement 
day after day. The woman has stopped to talk with 
them. 

“She is telling them that her daughter is doing well 

at a variety theatre abroad, and that the Agency 

are going to send out six more girls, as the manager in- 


84 THE DEVIL IH LONDOH 

tends to run a second troupe of ^The English Pansy 
Blossoms.’ 

^^She suggests that perhaps some of the girls she is 
talking to would like to be Pansy Blossoms, and she 
reads them a letter in which her daughter speaks in 
glowing terms of the good time she is having, and the 
good treatment, and the good money. 

^^Look, she has invited the girls to go into the saloon 
bar of the public-house at the corner and have a glass 
of port with her.” 

Fairfax saw one of the girls shake her head and turn 
away, but the two others walked along the street with 
the woman and entered the saloon bar with her. 

^^When they leave her,” said the Prince, ^They will 
go to the agency to which she has directed them. It 
is the one we went into first. These girls will be en- 
gaged for Marseilles.” 

^Tor a theatre of varieties?” 

^^Well, I suppose you would hardly call it that. They 
are wanted for a cafe chantant, which is a large estab- 
lishment, where the girls are also lodged and fed, and 
expected to make themselves agreeable to the clients.” 

‘^But when the girls find out what the place really 
is they will be able to leave it ?” 

The Prince smiled. 

^Tt will be a little difiicult,” he said. ^Tt is the busi- 
ness of the proprietress to make it so.” 

^Proprietress ? Is the place run by a woman ?” 

^^Yes, a good many of these cafes and brasseries are 
run by a madame, though there is generally a mon- 
sieur in the background. But come to the Embank- 


THE DEVIHS ^^AGENCY’^ 


85 


ment. There is a woman tout who works in the Em- 
bankment Gardens. On a fine day there are a good 
many girls, some of them out of employment, who sit 
and rest there for a time. You can see how skilfully a 
woman manages to pick out a girl in the profession, and 
how cleverly she starts a conversation with her.” 

‘‘1^0, thank you,” replied Fairfax, have an en- 
gagement. But I will go out again with you to-mor- 
row.” 

^Tf you want to see another phase of this branch of 
my business — ^The White Slave Trafiic’ your vigilance 
societies call it — ^you had better make the appointment 
early then.” 

^^What time ?” 

‘^To-morrow is Friday, I think. Yes. Then meet 
me at nine in the morning at Waterloo Station. We 
will see the Southampton train off. Till to-morrow!” 
He lifted his hat to Fairfax, and disappeared in the 
crowd. 

The young millionaire hesitated for a moment. Then 
he walked toward the public-house and entered the 
saloon bar. 

The well-dressed woman he had seen outside the 
agency was there talking to the two young women, and 
they were listening eagerly to her. But for the three 
women the bar was at that moment empty. 

^‘Excuse me, Madame,” he said to the woman, ^^but 

you represent the Agency in Street, Leicester 

Square. I wonder if these young ladies know the in- 
famous character of the establishment in Marseilles to 
which you are trying to persuade them to go ?” 


86 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


Before the woman had recovered from her astonish- 
ment Fairfax had turned to the girls. 

‘^Young ladies/’ he said, ^^this woman is a profes- 
sional tout for one of the most disreputable agencies in 
London. Have nothing to do with her.” 

The girls, with a frightened look, stammered their 
thanks to the stranger who had come to their rescue, 
and went out quickly. 

Fairfax followed them at a little distance, and 
watched them till they were out of sight. 

Then he turned and walked along the Strand, happy 
in the consciousness of having saved two unsuspecting 
English girls from a deadly peril. 


THE EOWLEHS NET 


87 


CHAPTEK VII 
THE EOWLEHS NET 

Shortly before nine in tbe morning Alan Fairfax 
stood on the platform at Waterloo, keenly interested in 
the travelers who had already begun to congregate. 

In the station yard the scene was a busy one. Cab 
after cab was driving up heavily laden with luggage of 
the character that instantly suggests the sea voyager. 

The special train for passengers by the Royal Mail 
steamer from Southampton was timed to leave at 9.28. 
From nine till within a few minutes of the departure 
of the train there was an endless procession of luggage- 
laden vehicles, and the word ^^Cabin’’ was conspicuous 
on many of the smaller trunks. 

Among the vehicles were elegant private motor-cars 
and a considerable number of taxi-cabs. A girl, evi- 
dently an ^^artist” in the sense in which the word is 
used for a theatrical contract, arrived in a brand-new 
yellow taxi with her mother and her brother, and was 
followed by another young lady in a four-wheeler with 
a mother and a sister. 

They proceeded to the platform, and there met four 
other girls, and then the little party entered a third- 
class carriage reserved for them. 

The girls were all young and all pretty, and Fairfax, 
as he saw the tears gathering in the motherly eyes that 
were looking at them for the last time for many a long 


88 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


day to come, hoped that the engagement to which they 
were proceeding in South America was of a very differ- 
ent character from those arranged by the disreputable 
agencies into whose methods he had been initiated on 
the previous day. 

He went to one of the station officials, and asked if 
he knew who the pretty girls were. 

^^Oh, yes, they are a troupe going to Buenos 

Ayres.” 

The name given was a well-known one in the variety 
world, and when Fairfax looked at the girls again it 
was without any misgivings as to their safety. 

There were a number of Jews on the platform. A 
good many of them were well-dressed, prosperous-look- 
ing, first-class passengers. But there were some groups 
of a different class altogether — curious, dark-eyed. 
Oriental-featured foreign Jews of the Ghetto type. 

One or two of the girls in these groups were young, 
good-looking, and rather showily dressed, and seemed 
ill at ease until they were joined by two smart-looking 
men, one of about forty and the other perhaps ten years 
younger. 

These two men took the girls away quickly from the 
little group of poor Jews with whom they had been con- 
versing in Yiddish. 

Standing at the door of a first-class compartment 
were two fashionably dressed men of the negroid type. 
In striking contrast to them was a fair-haired, blue-eyed 
English family, with a saloon carriage reserved for 
their use. 

One of the little girls, a charming picture of fair 


THE FOWLEHS HET 


89 


English childhood, caused even those on the platform, 
in whose hearts was the sadness of farewell, to smile 
by making the huge toy bear which she carried in her 
arms, and which was as big as herself, ‘^kiss’’ every one 
of the large party of friends who had come to see the 
family olf. 

Fairfax turned away with a smile from the toy beards 
farewell reception, and walked along the train. 

By the compartment in which the two smart Jews 
were now seated with the good-looking Jewish girls he 
saw a gentleman talking earnestly with two men, whom 
by their appearance Fairfax guessed to he detectives. 

The men in the carriage glared at the little group 
defiantly. 

Fairfax had been watching the scene eagerly, and 
waiting for developments, when some one spoke to him 
in a low voice. 

^‘You have found a dramatic incident for yourself, 
then?” were the words he heard. 

He turned and saw the Prince. 

^^Yes. Those two men on the platform are detec- 
tives, are they not ?” 

^^Quite right,” said the Prince ; ^^and the gentleman 
talking to them represents a Society for the Protection 
of Jewish Girls. The men in the carriage are well- 
known agents for what is called ^The White Slave Traf- 
fic.’ Look ! The representative of the society is going 
to speak to the girls.” 

The gentleman unfastened the door and pushed his 
way into the compartment, the two detectives closing 
up behind him. 


90 


THE DEVIL IH LONDON 


He spoke to each of the girls separately in Yiddish. 
They answered him without embarrassment, and he left 
the carriage with a look of anger on his face, and walked 
away with the detectives. 

‘Tf these rascals are what you say, why have not the 
girls been taken from them?” asked Fairfax. 

The Prince laughed. 

‘^They are well coached. They have been brought to 
London from Austria. They have been treated very well 
by these fellows, and told that they are going to Buenos 
Ayres to take engagements where they will get a fine 
salary.” 

^^But the officials here know the character of the 
men ?” 

^‘They ought to. The men have been engaged in this 
traffic for a couple of years. They go to the Continent, 
bring the girls over here, take them to South America, 
and then return for further supplies. 

‘‘But as far as these girls are concerned they have 
not broken the law yet, and so the officials can do noth- 
ing. The girls have told the gentleman who questioned 
them that they are the wives of their traveling compan- 
ions.” 

“But they are not. Why should they be so foolish as 
to tell a lie ?” 

The Prince laughed again. 

“The girls are ignorant of English ways. They have 
been assured that if they were traveling as single women 
they might be detained and their papers examined, and 
if they didnT prove that they had a certain amount of 
money in their possession they would be sent back to 


THE FOWLEK^S ISTET 91 

Austria by the English authorities under the Aliens 
Act.” 

understand — but on the other side the girls will, I 
suppose, find out the truth?” 

^^Yes, they won’t be long in finding out what the es- 
tablishment for which they will be purchased really is.” 

“And if they communicate with the authorities there, 
the men will be arrested ?” 

“Oh, no! The arrest must take place while all con- 
cerned are here, because it is only by the evidence of 
the girls themselves that the men can be convicted.” 

“But the evidence of girls who have been the victims 
of such an infamous conspiracy could be taken on com- 
mission, and the men guilty of the villainy, being in this 
country, could be arrested here and punished.” 

“My friend,” replied the Prince, “the magistrates 
of your glorious Land of Freedom will not accept evi- 
dence taken on commission in these cases. Until the law 
says that the evidence of the victims taken on commis- 
sion is admissible this trade will flourish in your midst.” 

Alan Fairfax knitted his brow. It seemed to him 
that the law was practically playing into the hands of 
these rascals, and that but for the philanthropic societies 
who gave themselves to the work of prevention and res- 
cue the infamous trade would go on unhampered. He 
said so to his companion. 

“Yes,” was the reply; “these societies are to-day ac- 
tive everywhere, and nowhere more so than in England ; 
but they have to fight a business which is well organized 
and skilfully conducted, and the profits are enormous.” 

“The profits are enormous?” repeated Fairfax. 


92 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


^^Yes ; as much as £200 a head has been paid to the 
men in that carriage for a ^satisfactory’ consignment.” 

^Tt is monstrous,” cried the young man, indignantly. 
^^Do you mean to say that here in free England in the 
twentieth century innocent girls are bought and sold 
as though they were slaves in the barbarous East 

^^The buying takes place on the other side. The girls 
are taken to a restaurant and treated to refreshment. 
The ^buyers’ come in, look round, and then make their 
offers to the dealers. Many of the girls are taken away 
believing that they are going into respectable hotels and 
business places. Here and at several of the other great 
termini where there is a seaport traffic I could show you 
any number of Vhite slaves’ en route for the principal 
markets. But there are not many here to-day. The 
slave dealers are becoming wary. Many of them now 
travel down to Southampton with their charges by an 
ordinary train in the middle of the week in order to es- 
cape official observation.” 

The train had filled while Fairfax and his guide were 
talking, and the moment of departure had come. The 
warning whistle was blown, and amid waving of hand- 
kerchiefs the boat express steamed out of the station. 
A few minutes later and the sorrowing friends had gone 
their separate ways into the great world of London, and 
the boat express wafe shrieking on its way toward the 
edge of the great dividing sea. 

^Hf you want to see other phases of this business,” 
said the Prince, ^Ve will go to some of the other big 
railway stations later on in the day.” 

***** 


THE FOWLER’S ITET 


93 


At two o’clock in the afternoon Fairfax and his guide 
had taken up a post of observation in another great 
terminus. 

Fairfax watched the crowd of passengers alight from 
the trains that arrived in quick succession. 

^^What a vast stream of humanity,” he thought, ^‘is 
poured daily into this great city and swallowed up in 
its mighty maw!” 

He noticed a tall, gray-haired woman dressed some- 
thing like a Sister of the People. She attracted Fair- 
fax’s attention by the manner in which she scrutinized 
the young women who came through the barriers alone 
and who showed by their manner that they were strang- 
gers to London. 

One good-looking girl, evidently from the country, 
carrying a hand-bag, stood for a moment and looked 
about her as if bewildered. 

The lady went to her and began to talk to her. 

Presently the lady called a porter. The girl’s lug- 
gage was claimed and placed in a four-wheeled cab, and 
the two drove away together. 

^That’s interesting,” said the Prince, who had been 
watching the proceedings ; ^^it is the kind of thing that 
doesn’t often happen. The woman has taken the girl 
in charge, pretending that she is the station representa- 
tive of an excellent society that meets young women ar- 
riving alone in London. I have only known the trick 
played once before.” 

‘^Do you mean to say that that woman is a fraud ?” 

^^She has got possession of that girl under false pre- 
tences at any rate,” replied the Prince. ^^But the rail- 


94 


THE DEVIL IN lONBON 


way station is the scene of plenty of dramas in real life. 
You would be astonished if you knew the number of 
young women who during the year arrive in London 
and disappear. The fate of many of them remains a 
mystery forever. 

^'Ah — here is a lady who does represent a society. 
You see, she has a paper in her hand ; she carries it in 
order that the girl traveler she is to meet may know 
her. The girl will have a similar paper, and has re- 
ceived minute instructions.” 

“That is an excellent idea,” said Fairfax. “What 
is the name of the society ?” 

“The Travelers’ Aid. Their agents and workers are 
at every railway station, and at all the seaports. They 
are the most dangerous people ^the traffic’ has to con- 
tend with. No sensational romance that has ever been 
written around the dangers of London to unprotected 
women and girls is half so wonderful as the plain state- 
ments of fact that this society compiles from its daily 
experiences.” 

“I am glad that you have powerful agencies opposed 
to you in this abominable business!” exclaimed Fair- 
fax, with a sigh of satisfaction. 

“Oh, yes ; and I never attempt to underrate them as 
foes.” 

“What are these agencies ?” 

“Among the pioneers, so far as this branch of my 
business is concerned, are the ISTational Vigilance Asso- 
ciation, the Travelers’ Aid Society, and the Jewish As- 
sociation for the Protection of Girls and Women. The 
first is mainly responsible for rousing the Continental 


THE FOWLEE’S HET 


95 


authorities to the extent of the White Slave Traffic. 
The other societies do their principal work in the rail- 
way stations and at the seaports. The Travelers’ Aid 
has a printed notice up in the waiting-rooms.” 

‘^But the waylaying of the young women who ar- 
rive alone at railway stations, strangers to London, 
has no connection with the Continental traffic, I sup- 
pose 

^^Oh, no; the girls, when they are met by women en- 
gaged in the business, are wanted for hotels of bad rep- 
utation, for certain boarding houses for foreigners 
which are conducted on principles which would very 
much astonish the good folks of London if they were 
told the plain unvarnished truth, and for ” 

Fairfax interrupted the Prince to draw his attention 
to a young woman who was sitting on a seat the pic- 
ture of distress. A man had seated himself beside her 
and was talking to her. 

^^She has come from the country to take a situation,” 
said the Prince, ^^and she has lost the letter with the 
address of her new mistress upon it. I know the man. 
He is in the habit of haunting railway stations in search 
of what he calls ^adventures.’ 

^^He is telling the girl not to be distressed and offer- 
ing to show her the sights of London and take her to a 
theatre this evening. He suggests that in the meantime 
she can telegraph to her friends in the country, as she 
has probably left the letter at home. She can have the 
reply sent to the post office ; she will get it to-night. The 
post office he is telling her to have the reply wired to 
closes at nine o’clock in the evening.” 


96 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


^^The scoundrel!’’ exclaimed Fairfax, walking up to 
the couple in spite of the Prince’s effort to restrain 
him. 

^Tf you are in trouble, miss,” he said to the girl 
gently, should advise you to go to the Travelers’ Aid 
Society. You will find the address on a warning notice 
addressed to young women arriving alone in London 
and in difficulty. The notice is in the waiting-room. 
You can telegraph from the society’s office, and have 
the reply sent there.” 

The girl thanked him, rose quickly, and went into the 
waiting-room. 

The man scowled at Fairfax, and muttering to him- 
self went out of the station. 

The Prince, who had watched the incident with ap- 
parent unconcern, chided the young man gently. 

'^That is hardly fair to me,” he said ; ^ffiut I can af- 
ford to look over your indiscretion. We will go into 
Victoria and meet the Continental mail that gets in at 
seven o’clock this evening.” 

***** 

The Continental mail carried an unusually large 
number of passengers, and they had to wait about some 
little time before the luggage was all unloaded and piled 
up in the examination rooms to be passed by the Cus- 
tom House officers. 

Fairfax, who had by this time, thanks to his guide’s 
confidences, become initiated into the perils of the rail- 
way station to a certain class of traveler, watched the 
girls, who were walking about apparently without hav- 


THE EOWLEHS HET 


97 


ing any one to meet them, and saw two or three women 
and a couple of men whom he at once placed ^^under 
suspicion.” 

^^This seems a station where there should be a repre- 
sentative of the society,” he suggested, noticing that a 
good many young foreign women were among the third- 
class passengers. 

^^Yes,” replied the Prince ; ^They always keep a good 
lookout here, but they have to be careful. It is difficult, 
when a foreigner addresses a foreign girl, to tell that 
the meeting is not a perfectly legitimate and prear- 
ranged one. 

^^But the society’s agents have keen eyes, and so have 
the railway officials. Yet for all that ” 

^Hook at that tall woman closely veiled,” said F air- 
fax. ^There is something odd and uncanny about her. 
See, she has gone up to a young woman who has just 
arrived, a foreign girl. She looks like a lady’s maid — 
or a superior servant.” 

^^She is a Swiss girl,” said the Prince, ^^and your sur- 
mise is correct — she is a servant.” 

‘^She is going away with that woman. Look, she has 
taken the girl’s hand-bag and rug, and is putting them 
in a cab.” 

‘^Yes. The lady whose appearance you think is odd 
is” — ^the Prince hesitated and shot a quick side glance 
at Fairfax — ^The mistress. She has advertised for a 
maid, and the girl, after correspondence, has secured the 
situation.” 

^^There is something about the business I don’t like.” 

^^What? It is perfectly legitimate,” 


98 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


may be, but that woman, the close veiling, tbe 
awkwardness.” 

The doors of the examination-room were flung open, 
and the crowd of travelers poured through them. 

The woman and the girl went in together, and pres- 
ently a porter came out carrying the girFs box, followed 
by the couple. 

The girl, as she was about to get into the cab, gave 
a little cry and ran back. She had left her hand-bag 
in the baggage examination-room. 

She found it and came out again, and passed E airf ax. 
As she did so he noticed that the bag had come open. 

He stopped the girl to draw her attention to the fact. 

^^Mademoiselle,” he said as she thanked him, ^^if ever 
as a foreigner you are in a difficulty and have no friends 
in London, go to the Travelers’ Aid Society in Baker 
Street. Don’t forget. They will tell you where the 
society’s offices are at any railway station.” 

^‘Merci, monsieur,” said the girl, smiling, and hur- 
ried to the cab, where her mistress was waiting for her. 

He waited about the station a little while longer, and 
saw enough to convince him that there was urgent need 
of such a society as the one he had begun to take a keen 
interest in. 

But the Prince was not so communicative as he had 
been up till now, and after seeing the crowd of Con- 
tinental travelers gradually melt away Fairfax left the 
station. 

***** 

The following afternoon the young millionaire went 
to the office of the Travelers’ Aid Society. He was anx- 


THE FOWLER’S HET 


99 


ious after his experiences of the railway stations of 
London to hear more about the society’s work. 

He asked for the secretary, and was informed she 
was engaged, and was invited to take a seat in the outer 
room. 

After he had been waiting for about ten minutes the 
door of the secretary’s office opened, and to his astonish- 
ment the Swiss girl he had seen at Victoria the previous 
evening came out. 

She passed E airf ax without seeing him and went out. 
His first impulse was to follow her, hut an attendant 
came to him and said that the secretary could see him 
now, and he went into the private office. 

Alan Fairfax at once referred to the coincidence of 
his having given the society’s address to the girl he had 
just seen leaving the secretary’s office. When he had 
been informed of the cause of the girl’s visit he no 
longer wondered that the ‘^oddness” of the “mistress” 
had attracted his attention. 

The girl had told a remarkable story. She had driven 
with her mistress to another railway station, and there 
they had taken the train to a Thames-side town about 
ten miles from London. 

The girl found that her new home was a villa stand- 
ing in its own grounds some distance off the main road. 

She was astonished to find there was no other servant 
in the place. Her mistress had explained that she was 
having all new girls. The other servants were coming 
in the next day. Then she offered the girl some cold 
meat and put some beer on the table for her. 

The girl, who had begun to have suspicions that all 


100 THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 

was not quite right, declined the heer, but ate a little 
of the meat. 

Her mistress then told her as she was doubtless tired 
she could go to bed, and showed her to a bedroom which 
was prettily furnished, and left her. 

The girl, nervous and ill at ease, sat down for a mo- 
ment, and then went to the window and gazed out. The 
window looked upon a long garden with high walls, and 
the nearest house was some distance away. In the gar- 
den there were three large dog kennels. The girl went 
to the door and found there was no holt. The key was 
not in the lock. 

Presently the mistress came up again and begged the 
girl to go to bed and get a good night’s rest. 

^^Don’t come out of your room,” she said, ^^unless I 
am with you. I have let my three bulldogs loose in the 
house. I always do that in the evening because this is 
rather a lonely place, and there are bad characters 
about. If you went downstairs by yourself the dogs, 
not knowing you yet, might tear you to pieces.” 

^Toor girl!” exclaimed Fairfax; ‘Vhat a terrible 
experience for her first night in London.” 

^^Yes, it was a terrible experience ; but it became even 
more terrible. The girl, fortunately for herself, is a 
brave girl ; and, thanks to her pluck and determination, 
she escaped from the trap that had been set for her. 

^^She left the house in spite of the bulldogs — ^who 
were not loose — and came here this afternoon, saying 
the address had been given to her.” 

^Tt was a trap, then ?” 

^^Yes; the person who advertised for a foreign ser- 


THE EOWLEE^S HET 


101 


vant — the person who met her at the station — the per- 
son who took her to that lonely villa — was a man dis- 
guised as a woman r 

***** 

When Alan Fairfax left the office of the Travelers’ 
Aid Society he had entered his name as a subscriber to 
its funds, and had left as a donation a check for a sum 
which would be of considerable service to it in its ad- 
mirable and urgently needed work. 


102 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


CHAPTEK VIII 

THE KOGUES’ KEHDEZVOUS 

When Alan Fairfax, a few days after his strange ex- 
periences of the great railway stations of London, found 
himself toward midnight in Shaftesbury Avenue with 
his guide, he had had an evening’s experience which 
made him as anxious for the society of clean-living, 
kindly men and women as a man who had passed an 
evening in a foul and vitiated atmosphere is anxious for 
a breath of pure air. 

The Prince had taken him into certain of the low 
cafes of Soho which are the nightly resort of the most 
undesirable class of alien to whom this country offers 
the hospitality of her shores. 

The greater number of the men sitting about at the 
little tables in these dingy and closely curtained cafes 
were directly or indirectly concerned in a terrible traffic, 
some of the methods of which had been revealed to the 
young millionaire during the inquiries that he com- 
menced at Waterloo. 

He saw these well-dressed and apparently well-to-do 
men sitting about in the cafes and playing dominoes — 
in some of the places they were playing cards — and 
when he learned that there were in one West End par- 
ish of London alone two thousand of them, every one 
a foreigner, he expressed his astonishment that such a 


THE KOGUES^ KENDEZVOUS 103 

condition of things could be tolerated for an hour in 
the capital of the British Empire. 

^^Why does not the law keep these rascals out of the 
country he exclaimed indignantly. 

^^The law would like to,” replied the Prince, ^^but 
England is a land of freedom, and your^police have not 
the privileges that the police of foreign countries enjoy. 
These men are cunning, and many of them have means. 
They are an organized body. A good many of them 
belong to a syndicate which has its officers, its secretary, 
and its legal advisers.” 

Fairfax eyed the men sitting about at the tables with 
undisguised contempt. 

have had enough of them,” he said. ‘Tf we are 
going to any other cafes let them be those not frequented 
by men of this class !” 

‘^There is a cafe that might interest you only a 
street or two away. It is the favorite resort of some of 
the cleverest thieves in Europe — a sort of rendezvous 
for railway robbers. They have their International 
Society, you know.” 

^international Society?” repeated Fairfax with a 
smile. 

^^Yes, and a very well-managed society it is. Big rail- 
way robberies are put up in one country to be carried 
out in another. Sometimes the gang will arrange among 
themselves three robberies in one week, one on an Eng- 
lish railway, one on a French railway, and one on an 
Italian railway, and pool the receipts.” 

^it is an organized business, then?” 

splendidly organized business. If it were not. 


104 


THE DEVIL IN LONBON 


the dressing-bag and jewel-case robberies on English 
and foreign railways would not be carried out so safely 
and so dexterously.” 

Fairfax followed his guide into a cafe which was very 
much superior to the dingy dens he had been visiting. 

There was nothing in the appearance of the guests 
to suggest that any of them got their living by criminal 
practices. The men and women present looked quite 
the ordinary sort of people one would expect to find in 
a thoroughly respectable establishment. 

When they had been served with coffee the Prince, 
who had been glancing round, told Fairfax to look at a 
party of three well-dressed men and a stylishly dressed, 
good-looking young woman seated at a corner table. 

‘‘The three men are expert railway thieves,” he said. 
“One is an American, the other two are English. They 
are planning the theft of a duchess’s jewel case. It 
will be stolen from a reserved compartment in the Hice 
and Monte Carlo express the day after to-morrow.” 

“Who is the i^irl ?” asked Fairfax. “Is she a railway 
thief?” 

“Ho ; she is a lady’s maid. She is giving the thieves 
information, which one of them will take to Paris to- 
morrow, and communicate with a member of the society 
there.” 

“But the young woman you say is a lady’s maid. 
Why should she give the information ?” 

“The society has a certain number of lady’s maids 
and footmen and valets who work for them, and are 
well paid. They are the domestic accomplices of the 
working members. They obtain situations with false 


THE EOGUES’ EENDEZVOUS 


105 


references. That young woman’s mistress called per- 
sonally on a lady at a West End mansion for the maid’s 
character. The society sometimes takes a furnished 
house in the West End for a month in order to place 
three or four servants with wealthy families who travel 
with valuable property about them. There is an inter- 
esting couple to the left of the group — the gray-haired, 
military-looking man with the stout clean-shaven for- 
eigner.” 

‘^Are they thieves ?” 

^^Yes ; the elder of the two makes a specialty of steal- 
ing post-office hags in transit. At Calais a year or two 
ago he got away with a bag containing bonds to the 
value of £10,000. The man with him is a go-between 
for the negotiation of stolen bonds. They are probably 
arranging a big coup that will blaze out on the contents 
bills of the daily papers in a few days’ time. Do you 
want to see any more special cafes?” 

^^Then let us visit some of the foreign clubs. There 
are plenty of interesting people for you there.” 

^^Cliibs ?” 

^^Yes ; there are scores of clubs the members of which 
are principally men of bad reputation. The proprietor 
— a foreigner — registers his establishment by paying 
a small fee. Then his place enjoys all the privileges of 
the Carlton or the Eeform.” 

^^And the police?” 

^‘Can only enter the premises if they have good 
grounds to suppose that a breach of the law is being 
committed. They are most of them gambling dens, and 


106 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


when the police get sufficient evidence and raid them, 
they find faro or baccarat or some illegal game in full 
swing. Very often the company arrested are not mem- 
bers at all. We will go into one of these places if you 
like.’^ 

Whatever the club rules were as to the admission of 
strangers, the Prince had no difficulty in overcoming 
the scruples of the doorkeepers of the foreign establish- 
ments they visited. 

‘This,^’ he said, as he led Fairfax through a small 
room in which were a few chairs, a table with some 
foreign newspapers on it, and a set of rules over the 
mantelpiece, ‘4s a duly licensed club run by a foreigner 
with a fairly wide experience of men and cities. 

“He has been in trouble with the authorities in three 
capitals, and he will probably be in trouble with the 
London police before long, for these premises are under 
suspicion. 

“But in the meantime, in this land of liberty, he is 
able under your broad and enlightened system to take 
these premises, open them as a club, and supply his 
interesting clients with as much strong drink as they 
want during the hours that the publican by the law’s 
decrees is compelled to remain closed. The subscrip- 
tion is small, the facilities for gambling are great. 

“But to see the place at its best — I suppose you would 
call it at its worst — ^you should come here on a ladies’ 
night.” 

They had passed through the front room, in which 
there were only two or three members who were reading 
foreign journals, into the large room at the back, in 


THE EOGUES’ KENDEZVOUS 


107 


which there was a bar, a French billiard table, and a 
number of little tables, at which the members were play- 
ing cards. The varying fortunes of the game were 
marked with loud language, much of which was unmis- 
takably of an imprecatory character. 

Fairfax glanced round the company, and was not 
favorably impressed. Some of the men looked as 
though they were capable of anything. 

^^They don’t look ^nice’ people, any of them,” he said. 

‘^^70! There is not a man whose character would 
bear close investigation. Some of them are men of ad- 
vanced political views, and take a deep interest in the 
doings of Continental Anarchists. The man with the 
shaggy gray moustache is an avowed Anarchist. He is 
one of the foreign guests who are always kept imder 
the close surveillance of your police when a foreign po- 
tentate is on a visit here.” 

^^They believe that he might attempt to assassinate ?” 
interrupted Fairfax, glancing at the burly Italian, who 
looked like a comic opera brigand in mufti. 

^^He might be tempted to renew the pleasures of his 
youth,” replied the Prince. ^^He was one of the com- 
rades who ^removed’ a Continental premier. One of 
his bosom friends was blown up some years ago by a 
bomb that went off too soon, and another hurled his last 
curse at ^Society’ one misty May morning while he was 
waiting to be guillotined.” 

^^His past is well known, and yet he is admitted as 
a member of a club in London and enjoys all the priv- 
ileges of club life ?” 

‘‘Yes. Half the members of the establishment are 


108 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


Continental desperadoes who have come to London be- 
cause it offers privileges that they would not enjoy in 
any other capital in the world. The proprietor of this 
club himself would, if he returned to his native land, be 
promptly arrested and conveyed to jail. But let us see 
some other foreign clubs. If we were in the East in- 
stead of the West I would take you to some where the 
members are supplied with methylated spirits at a 
penny a glass. It is their favorite beverage.” 

^^Methylated spirit!” exclaimed Eairfax. 

^Tt is served in several Eussian and Polish clubs, 
and on a ladies’ night you may see the women drinking 
it in the intervals of the ball programme. To see that 
you must come out with me on Sunday nights. Sun- 
day night is the great dancing night in the clubs fre- 
quented by foreigners. One or two are occasionally 
closed by the police when they find out that faro is be- 
ing played, or when knives are used to emphasize heated 
arguments ; but as fast as the police close a club of this 
kind another takes its place.” 

‘^But all registered clubs are not of this character ?” 

^Dh, no. Many of them are genuine working men’s 
clubs, honorably and soberly conducted. I am showing 
you the worst class of foreign clubs. Many are, 
of course, bogus clubs, but they exist all over Lon- 
don.” 

While they were talking Eairfax and his guide had 
come to a small badly lighted side street. 

At the corner was a house that seemed to be in dark- 
ness. The windows on the ground floor were closely 
shuttered, and there was only a faint light behind the 


THE ROGUES^ RENDEZVOUS 109 

small square of glass over the front door, on which the 
number of the house was shown. 

The Prince pushed the door open, and entered, fol- 
lowed by Fairfax. 

A man stopped them, and asked them if they were 
members. 

The Prince made a reply which Fairfax did not un- 
derstand, and the doorkeeper went for the ^^secretary,” 
and presently came back with him. 

The Prince gave the secretary a few pieces of silver, 
and the secretary handed to each of the visitors a card 
of membership, and, opening a door at the end of a 
passage, introduced them to the club room. 

The secretary then entered the names of the new 
members, with their profession and subscriptions, and 
the date of their entrance, etc., in the hook he carried. 

^Tt has not taken us long to get elected,” said Fairfax. 
^This is surely not permitted by the laws regulating 
clubs 

^'Hardly,” replied the Prince. ^‘But our cards are 
filled in with a violet pencil, as you will see if you look 
at them, and they are dated a fortnight ago. If you 
were presently to examine the books of the club you will 
find that full particulars of our election have been en- 
tered in such a way as to make it appear in the case 
of police examination that the transaction is in perfect 
order.” 

‘^But the police know that these tricks are practised ?” 

^^Yes, but a good many of the tricks practised to 
evade the law are difficult to prove, and the proprietors 
of these places take the risk and trust to good luck. If 


110 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


they are fined, and the premises closed in one street, 
they open premises in another.’’ 

They were in a large room with the usual bar in it. 
There was a good deal of drinking going on. The mem- 
bers were of all nationalities, but there were a very 
large number of Germans. 

^Waiters, small shopkeepers, fairly respectable men, 
and utterly disreputable men are here,” said the Prince. 
^^The gambling spirit levels all distinctions, and these 
men are all here to gamble. This is one of the places 
that your newspaper people usually describe as ^a hell.’ 
Come downstairs.” 

At the end of the room was a flight of wooden stairs 
which led below. 

In the basement the visitors found a large room, 
which was densely packed. In the centre was a table 
marked out for faro, and around this was gathered a 
cosmopolitan crowd. The men, who were of all ages 
and types, were staking their money, and shouting, 
gesticulating, and cursing as they won or lost. 

The atmosphere was stifling, and Fairfax had soon 
had enough of it. 

^^Come,” said the Prince, when they were outside. 
^The night is still young, and I should like to show 
you some things that will astonish you more than any- 
thing you have seen as yet ; things that will make you 
indignant. I like your indignation. It amuses me.” 

^^Then I won’t provide you with any further amuse- 
ment this evening,” replied Fairfax. will go out with 
you again to-morrow, but I want a totally different ex- 
perience from this. Good-night.” 


^HE men, of all ages and types were staking 


their money and shouting and cursing. 


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THE EOGUES’ KENDEZVOUS 


111 


The Prince bowed his head in mock humility. 

am always at your service, my young Paladin,” 
he said, and his smile in the glare of the electric light 
was the nearest approach to a sardonic grin that Pair- 
fax had yet been favored with. 

In another moment he had disappeared, and Fairfax 
heaved a sigh of relief. 

As he stood and watched the busy scenes in Shaftes- 
bury Avenue, the crowd of pleasure-seekers from the 
theatres, and halls, and restaurants mingling with the 
cosmopolitan contingent that has made this end of the 
thoroughfare a moral plague spot, his thoughts turned 
to the night when he had first seen Sister Angela. 

He wondered if she was on her Mission of Mercy now. 

He crossed the Circus to Swan and Edgar’s, and 
stood for a moment among the crowds of people waiting 
for their homeward-bound omnibus or motor ’bus. Then 
he walked up Piccadilly, but there was no sign of the 
St. Ethelbert Sisters. 

He turned up Swallow Street into Regent Street, and, 
making his way back toward the Circus, he saw two 
Sisters of the People coming toward him. They were 
Sister Angela and Sister Emily. 

Por a moment he felt inclined to step aside into the 
shadow, and let them pass him. 

He felt a good deal of difiidence about stopping the 
Sisters to talk with them in Regent Street at that time 
of night. 

But as Sister Angela came nearer he saw that she 
had recognized him. 

He raised his hat, and she put out her hand. 


112 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


^^Oh, Mr. Fairfax,” she said, am so glad to meet 
you. Sister Emily and I were talking of you only a 
moment ago. She wishes to thank you for your splendid 
gift, and you did not even give us an address to which 
we could write.” 

^Ht was not necessary,” stammered Fairfax. 

‘^Oh, but it was — indeed, it was,” said the Sisters 
eagerly. ^^We are not business women — though, of 
course, we have plenty of good business men at the back 
of our Mission — and you really must help us — you 
must see and know how we propose to spend your 
money.” 

shall be very pleased,” said Fairfax. 

^^Very well, then; when shall we see you? Will you 
come to the Hall ?” 

‘^With pleasure. When shall I come ?” 

‘^Could you come to-morrow at noon ? ( We have noth- 
ing on at that time.”^y 

^^To-morrow at twelve. I will be there.” 

^‘Oh, one moment, ” said Angela, laying her hand on 
his arm as he turned to leave them, “will you tell me 
— I am only a woman, you know, and have a woman’s 
curiosity — how did you come into possession of the piece 
of paper on which our address was written ?” 

“I — I — got it,” replied Fairfax, hesitatingly, “from 
an old woman.” 

“From Bridget. I thought so. Poor Bridget! I 
am afraid you are the cause of her trouble, then.” 

“Her trouble?” 

“Yes, she was sent to prison yesterday for seven days 
for being helplessly drunk in the street. She said that 


THE EOGUES’ EEI^DEZYOUS 


113 


she could not help it. Some one had given her a sover- 
eign. The case was in the papers yesterday. Poor old 
soul 

confess I did give her a sovereign/’ stammered 
Fairfax, ^^but I hoped she would make good use of it.” 

Sister Angela shook her head sadly. 

^^These poor creatures never do when they have the 
craving for drink. Everything they get goes in it. It 
is a disease, Mr. Fairfax, with many of these poor peo- 
ple. To give them money is only to give them the means 
of getting drink enough to be sent to prison. When 
Bridget comes out I am going to try and persaude her 
to go into a home for inebriates. There they will try 
to cure her. It is the only chance. Imprisonment is 
no more likely to cure an inebriate than it is to cure a 
lunatic.” 

^^You are right. Sister. I have learned that, and it 
is a matter in which I take the deepest interest.” 

^^We have another idea in common then,” said Angela, 
smiling. 

She held out her hand, and Fairfax clasped it and 

bade the Sisters good-night. 

* * * * * 

It was quite a business conversation that Alan Fair- 
fax had in the little sitting-room at the Hall the fol- 
lowing day, and the head of the Mission, the Eev. 
Arthur Selwyn, was present to give his assistance, but 
Fairfax had never spent a happier hour in his life. 

He tried to think that the new sense of the joy of 
living that he experienced was due to his acquaintance 
with men and women who were devoting their lives to 


114 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


the service of the poor, the unhappy and the suffering ; 
but he knew in his heart of hearts that there was an- 
other reason — his admiration for the girl who was giv- 
ing her youth and beauty to the service of the people. 

When he left he had promised to take an active in- 
terest in the founding of Sister Angela’s Hostel for 
Women, and to be one of the little committee who were 
to pass all the details and select the site, and to approve 
the design for the building. 

He had, during the conversation in the little parlor 
of the Mission, expressed his sorrow for the misfortune 
he had unwittingly brought upon old Bridget by his 
ill-judged generosity, and Angela had told him a little 
of the old woman’s history. 

^^The poor old soul,” said Angela, ^^never had much 
chance, you know, and that is what makes us so sorry 
for her. Her husband was a hawker who drank away 
every farthing that he got, and he and Bridget lived 
for years in ^a furnished room.’ ” 

^^And the Turnished room,’ Mr. Fairfax,” inter- 
rupted Mr. Selwyn, ‘^is a curse to the community. It 
is a miserable den with a wretched bed, a battered table, 
and a couple of broken chairs, and for this the unfortu- 
nate tenants have to pay tenpence a night — sometimes a 
shilling. I have known as many as sixteen people herd- 
ing together in one of these wretched rooms.” 

^^They are horrible,” said Angela, ‘^and my heart 
bleeds for the decent people, the women, and the little 
children who have no other home. The street in which 
Bridget lived is one of the worst in London,” 
criminal street ?” asked Fairfax. 


THE HOGUES’ HE^tdEZVOUS 115 

“Ho, not actually a criminal street,” said Selwyn, 
“but thoroughly bad for all that.” 

Fairfax asked for the name of the street. He had 
not seen the “furnished room” phase of London life, 
and he was determined to add that to his experiences. 

“You had better go through in the day-time,” said 
the clergyman. “It is a rough place after dark — espe- 
cially on Saturday night.” 

“I will take care,” replied Fairfax. “I have some 
one who will go with me, and he knows London and 
the London people thoroughly.” 

The young man wondered what the Rev. Arthur 
Selwyn and the Sisters of the Mission would have 
thought if he had told them who the “some one” was. 


116 


THE DEVIL IN LONBON 


CHAPTEK IX 
THE KOAD TO KUIX 

^^This,” said the Prince of Darkness, as he turned with 
Alan Fairfax into a street in the West of London, close 
to a glorious park laid out for the gentler pleasures of 
the people, ^‘is sometimes called ^The Road to Ruin/ 
Frankly, I think it is in every way worthy of the name/’ 

^^And you ought to know!” exclaimed Fairfax, 
grimly. 

^Wes, I am thoroughly at home here. I look upon 
the streets of this description as part of my educational 
system. They are my academic groves, in which the 
students sit at the feet of the masters, training grounds 
in which the young are taught to he efficient in my ser- 
vice. Give me a street like this, in which every house 
is either a doss-house, or let out in Turnished rooms,’ 
and I can look at a whole forest of church spires rising 
to the neighboring skies without being visibly affected. 

It was shortly after mid-day that the strange com- 
panions found themselves in the street in which old 
Bridget had during the lifetime of her husband oc- 
cupied a ^Turnished room,” the street which Sister 
Angela and the head of St. Ethelbert’s Mission had 
urged the young millionaire to visit with a view of as- 
certaining the conditions under which the inhabitants 
are engaged in the struggle for existence. 

^^This is not, I am told, a criminal street,” said Fair- 


THE EOAD TO EUIK 


117 


fax, as he looked at the four-story stuccoed houses that 
had evidently once been occupied by a servant-keeping 
class, and saw that almost every house had two or three 
broken windows papered over or filled in with dirty 
rags. 

‘^Ho, it is not a criminal street, as the term goes — 
the people here are drunken, idle, thriftless and vicious, 
they get into the hands of the police, and the industrial 
schools’ officer is constantly taking children away from 
their parents, hut you would not call the people ‘profes- 
sional’ criminals.” 

A number of children, boys and girls, were playing 
about the street, and Fairfax looked at the little ones 
pityingly. 

“The people must be very poor,” said the young mil- 
lionaire. “Some of the children have only a few hor- 
rible rags on them.” 

“Yes,” replied the Prince, “they don’t spend their 
money on the children’s clothes here. But good clothes 
wouldn’t stand much chance in a ‘furnished room.’ The 
children sleep on the floor at night, without removing 
any of their garments. They’ve just got what they 
stand upright in, and what they have they hold, and 
keep it on from one week’s end to the other.” 

A little boy and girl came along the street together, 
and pushed their way through a group of untidy women 
on a doorstep. 

“Those children are better dressed than the others, 
and their faces are quite clean,” said Fairfax. 

“They are kept neat and clean for business purposes,” 
replied the Prince, smiling. “They are let out two 


118 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


or three times a week to a widow, who goes on what is 
known as ^the chaunting lay.’ 

^^She sings hymns in the street at night, and the ^lit- 
tle orphans’ join in, holding on to her skirts as she 
moves slowly along in search of the coppers of the 
charitable passers-by, kind-hearted servants, and old 
ladies at the windows, whose hearts are touched by the 
pathetic spectacle of the clean widow reduced to beg- 
ging from door to door for her fatherless little ones. 
This street is notorious for its singing widows.” 

‘^Are they really widows?” 

‘^Some of them have been at one time or the other. 
But many of them are only widows out of doors. When 
there is a good deal of sympathy for the unemployed, 
the widow stops at home, and the husband goes out with 
the children. He is an out-of-work widower. 

‘^But the Vidow and child’ is the favorite ^lay’ here. 
A woman with a lame child or a blind child does well, 
and might live comfortably on the week’s takings if the 
bulk of the money didn’t go in drink. See, there is a 
blind child.” 

Fairfax looked where his companion pointed, and 
saw, a pretty little girl of eight being led by a thin, 
pale, middle-aged man, who limped along painfully. 
The look of blind helplessness in the child’s gentle face 
was intensely pathetic, and touched the young man 
deeply. 

^^That is a story of this street that you might like to 
know,” said the Prince. ‘^The man with the child is her 
father. He is what you would call a decent, honest fel- 
low. A year ago he was in the infirmary. He had 


THE EOAD TO RUIH 


119 


been there for three or four months. His wife made up 
the money he had ceased to earn for her by going out 
begging with the little girl. 

woman in the same house had a little boy who 
was blind, and with the blind boy did remarkably well. 
The little girl’s mother found she was getting less than 
her neighbor. Tt’s the blind kid as does it,’ she said 
to herself. One night she put something into her own 
little one’s eyes and blinded it. That made the girl 
more valuable for begging purposes.” 

^^The inhuman wretch!” exclaimed Fairfax, ^^it is 
unbelievable 1” 

“At any rate, the magistrate believed the facts that 
were brought before him when the woman was charged. 
The woman was sent to prison, and the child was saved 
by ‘The Prevention of Cruelty’ people. When the 
father came out of the infirmary he pleaded so earnestly 
for his little girl to be given back to him that his re- 
quest was granted.” 

“He is a hawker, and can earn thirty shillings a week 
in good times, and so he can look after his little blind 
girl and keep her respectably.” 

“But when the times are bad ?” 

“Oh, there are plenty of the women neighbors who 
will ‘mother’ her, as they call it. That is one of the 
remarkable things about these people. They are capable 
of the greatest kindness to a neighbor in distress. I 
confess that they often astonish me by their really good 
deeds. When it got known how cruelly that little girl 
had been treated, the women, drunken and dissipated as 
many of them are, would have lynched the mother if the 


120 


THE DEVIL m LONDOH 


police hadn’t got hold of her and saved her for the law 
to deal with.” 

^^Thank God for that!” exclaimed Fairfax, fervently. 
“There is some hope for these people after all. But 
let us go into some of the houses. I want to see the bur- 
nished room’ family.” 

Alan Fairfax had not visited half a dozen of the 
“furnished rooms” in the terrible street before he came 
to the conclusion that the “Koad to Euin” only justified 
its name as far as the children were concerned. 

The grown-up people could hardly advance much 
further on that road. They seemed already to have ar- 
rived at the goal. 

In room after room, when the “family” were in, he 
found characters of the worst possible type. 

In house after house he found that families of eight 
and ten and sometimes twelve people occupied a single 
room, men and women, big lads and big girls and little 
children, all herding together. 

“To see these rooms at their worst,” said his guide, 
“you ought to come late at night, when the public- 
houses are closed. The occupants are then all ^at 
home.’ ” 

“How can they live ?” exclaimed Fairfax. “How can 
the children live in such surroundings and in such cir- 
cumstances?” repeated Fairfax. “How can they 
breathe ?” 

“They find a good deal of difficulty. Come into a 
room in this house, and you will see your question an- 
swered.” 

They passed into a single room, occupied by a widow. 


1^1 


THE KOAD TO EUIl^ 

her three sons and her four daughters. The eldest chil- 
dren were out. A glance at the younger ones was suf- 
ficient to show Fairfax that they were in a state of that 
^^cruel neglect’’ which now renders the parent answer- 
able to the law. 

But the woman who could not look after her own 
children was minding two babies. One of the babies 
was lying on a dreadful bed that filled one corner of 
the wretched room. The other was being nursed by a 
ragged, emaciated little girl. 

‘^The woman receives twopence a day for each of her 
nurse-babies,” said the Prince. ^‘The mothers come at 
night, pay the money, and take their offspring away.” 

The certificates of the baby-minder’s efficiency as a 
nurse covered a considerable portion of the wall. 

They consisted of clieap mourning cards, sacred to 
the memory of departed infants. Each little black- 
edged card had printed on it : ^Hn loving memory of,” 
and in a blank space the name of a little lost one was 
filled in. 

The walls of the furnished room occupied by the 
baby-minder were adorned with fifteen memorial cards 
to children of her own, who had passed out of her 
‘^minding” early. The longest span of life recorded on 
the cards was eighteen months. 

In room after room that he visited with his guide it 
was the condition of the children that touched the heart 
of the young millionaire, who was looking for the first 
time on the most appalling feature of life, as it is lived 
in one of London’s ^^black patches.” 

He learned that in this street there were more pro- 


122 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


fessional beggars than in any other street in London. 
Here the cruelty to the children was systematic. The 
women who went out at night and begged for their 
‘^starving children^’ wanted them to look starved. They 
wanted them to look pitiable in order to excite pity. 

Begging, drinking, and ^^chaunting’’ were the char- 
acteristics of the street of shame, and in almost every 
one of the wretched rooms there was a man who lived 
on the alms that the woman and the unhappy children 
were sent out nightly to collect. Many of the men were 
big, hulking fellows, who lounged the day away, and 
spent the evening in the public-house. 

The widow who went out begging on her own account 
with hired children was in one respect better off than 
the married woman who took out her own offspring. 

She kept her money to spend on herself, and did not 
have to hand it over to a husband who beat her brutally 
if the receipts did not satisfy him. 

Alan Fairfax had not seen so many women with 
black eyes and scarred faces since he spent an evening 
in a mixed lodging-house. 

^^What must the night be like in such a street as 
this?” he thought to himself, as he came out of the 
liuman rabbit warrens into the fresh air with a gasp of 
relief. 

He put the question to his guide. 

‘Tf you want to see, you should come here on Satur- 
day night. That is when the street is at its liveliest. 
They celebrate Saturday night here with a thorough- 
ness that has earned for the place a widespread reputa- 
tion. It is really one of the sights of London, but the 


THE KOAD TO KUIH 


123 


ordinary Londoner would not be likely to enjoy the 
spectacle long. Thoughts of personal safety would 
cause him to make for a properly lighted thoroughfare 
as speedily as possible.” 

will spend next Saturday night here with you,” 
replied Fairfax. ^^Let us decide when we will meet.” 

J ust before closing time,” replied the Prince. ^^That 
is when the street begins to make itself heard.” 

They walked to the top of the road, and in a moment 
they were in a broad and busy thoroughfare with all 
the signs of a thriving and well-organized suburb around 
them. It seemed to the young millionaire that he had 
passed in one brief moment from the barbarism of a 
foul, old-world Alsatia into the space and splendor of 
twentieth century civilization. 

* * * * * 

It was close upon midnight on Saturday when Fair- 
fax and his guide turned out of the broad, well lighted 
thoroughfare into the black street of shame. 

The change from light to darkness was so sudden 
that for a moment or two Fairfax could only see a few 
dim forms moving about in the gloom. 

They walked along the street, and Fairfax noticed 
that nearly every door was wide open, but there was 
no light in the passages beyond. 

It was black darkness everywhere, except for a glim- 
mering light in one or two of the windows. A street 
lamp half-way down shed a few feeble rays around that 
only intensified the blackness beyond. 

Although it was just on midnight, little children 
were creeping to and fro. In the centre of the road- 


124 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


way a group of rough, lads were wrangling, and three 
or four young girls, bareheaded and unkempt, were gos- 
siping at a corner. 

One of them, a good-looking, finely built girl of fif- 
teen, dressed in an old skirt that was badly torn and 
a dirty blouse fastened behind with a single pin, was 
smoking a cigarette. 

^^You probably notice,” said the Prince, as Fairfax 
looked at the girl intently, ^^that the female population 
of this street, young and old, do not trouble themselves 
much with needle and thread. Sewing is not an art 
they cultivate, and when buttons come off and hooks 
and eyes get torn out, they are not replaced.” 

‘^They have not time enough on their hands,” replied 
Fairfax, ‘^at least, to stitch their rags together. That 
girl, for instance, could have sewn a button or two or 
a hook and eye on her blouse, and she might easily have 
repaired her skirt.” 

^^They have a particular objection to mending clothes 
in streets like this. You may have noticed girls of a 
slightly better class than the women of this street going 
about on a hot summer day with a thick winter jacket 
on ?” 

^‘1 have seen it, and wondered at it.” 

‘^The explanation is simple. They find it less trouble 
to put on a jacket than to sew on the button or the hook 
and eye that would enable them to fasten the old blouse 
or ^body’ they are wearing. A heavy winter jacket, even 
in a heat wave, covers a multitude of sins of omission.” 

The road which had been quiet as they had turned 
into it began slowly to show signs of animation. At the 


THE KOAD TO EUIH 


125 


end of the street, where the public-house stood, a small 
crowd that had gathered gTew larger and larger as the 
occupants of the bars came surging out in obedience to 
the reiterated cry of ^^Time.” 

Presently the lights of the tavern went out, and the 
big doors went to with a clang. 

When the visitors reached the spot a crowd of men 
and women, some of the latter with babies in their arms 
were shouting and gesticulating and bandying coarse 
jests. 

A policeman came along and tried to clear the loiter- 
ers otf with the conventional ‘‘Move along, move along, 
please,” and presently the mob grew less. 

From other parts of the neighborhood, and from 
the broad thoroughfare at the top, men and women 
drifted into the street singly, in couples, and in 
groups. 

One or two men and several women were drunk and 
quarreling. 

A man and a woman began to fight furiously, and 
were speedily surrounded by a crowd that shrieked and 
yelled at the combatants. 

Presently two young women dashed in, and seized 
the woman, whose face was bleeding, and dragged her 
away. She struggled, and stopped every now and then 
to yell back a torrent of language at the man who had 
knocked her about. 

A. few minutes later the air was rent by shrieks from 
one of the houses, and the cry of “Murder ! murder !” 
rang out on the ear of night. 

“It is nothing,” said his companion, as Fairfax made 


126 


THE DEVIL IN lONBON 


a movement as if to go to the house. You’ll hear 
plenty of that presently. There’ll be fighting and 
shrieking and yelling for another hour. Sometimes 
there is a fight on Saturday night in every room in one 
of these houses.” 

The house that had first attracted Fairfax’s atten- 
tion, through the woman shouting ^^Murder!” had evi- 
dently not yet filled up. Men and women were slowly 
slouching into it, but none of them took any notice of 
the noise above. Presently, in the room from which 
the cry had come, there yas a crash of breaking glass, 
and a bottle came through, and broke on the pavement 
below. 

^‘They’re throwing bottles at each other,” said his 
companion, ‘That’s all.” 

The screams and cries of children were now added 
to the clamor, and presently a girl came rushing out 
into the street. 

“He’s killing her! He’s killing mother!” she cried, 
“and the baby — the baby’s in her arms — I couldn’t get 
it away. Help ! help !” 

A number of women standing on a doorstep were ap- 
pealed to by the girl. When she said that the baby was 
in peril, one big woman, with an oath, set off to rescue 
it. 

“God help the children in such a room as that !” ex- 
claimed Fairfax. “It must be terrible for them where 
the mother and father fight.” 

A minute or two later the whole street was in an up- 
roar. A drunken quarrel in a doss-house at the top 
had ended in a man being stabbed, and the man who 


THE KOAD TO RUIH 127 

had done the stabbing was an unpopular character in 
the neighborhood. 

There was a rush of women to the door of the doss- 
house, and men came out of the other houses, and pres- 
ently a noisy mob had gathered to see the ^Tun.” 

The doss-house quarrel spread. In a few minutes 
half a dozen men were fighting fiercely on the pave- 
ment, and the women were taking sides. 

The police whistle blew, and two constables came up 
together, and were quickly followed by a third. 

The dossers, among them the man who had used the 
knife, dashed back into the house, and the police fol- 
lowed. A woman had cried out that a man had been 
stabbed inside, and that a man who had taken his part 
had been nearly killed by ‘^Deafy Jones.” 

But the police came out again without a prisoner. 
The man with a knife and “Deafy Jones” had climbed 
out at the back window of the top fioor, and had got on 
to the roof. 

Some one saw them making their way along by the 
chimney pots, and called out to them. The crowd 
looked up, and yelled with delight. 

They hoped that the police would go up after the 
men, and that there would be a desperate fight on the 
roof. That had happened once before in the street, and 
the spectacle had been a joy to the inhabitants, who had 
been able to see it comfortably from the windows on 
the opposite side of the road. 

But the police did not follow to the roof this time. 
They knew the men who were wanted, and were con- 
tent to wait until they chose to come down. 


128 


THE DEVIL IN lONION 


The wounded man was brought out of the doss-house 
to be carried to a hospital. A few women followed to 
the top of the street. 

For another hour the street rang with the oaths of 
men and the cries of women; a babel of blasphemy 
went up from the basements, where the common kitchens 
were still filled with the lodgers who were celebrating 
Saturday night. 

The ravings of a drunken virago and the impreca- 
tions of a man and a woman fiung out of a furnished 
room, the hysterical sobbing of a girl huddled up on a 
doorstep with a baby in her arms, these were the sounds 
that filled the ears of Alan Fairfax, as he and his com- 
panion left the street of shame behind them. 

As they came to the top of the street of ^Turnished 
rooms,” the clock of a neighboring church struck two. 

The first hours of the Christian Sabbath had passed. 


THE LADIES’ PAKADISE 


129 


CHAPTEE X 

THE LADIES’ PAKADISE 

Alan Fairfax had been a frequent visitor to the St. 
Ethelhert’s Mission. The plans for Sister Angela’s 
Hostel for Women had been prepared and passed, and 
the young man to whose generous impulse the scheme 
was due had assured the Committee that they need have 
no anxiety as to any future funds that might be re- 
quired. 

The other members of the Committee had gone, and 
as he took Sister Angela’s hand and bade her good-by 
they were alone in the Mission ^^parlor.” 

“You understand what I mean about the money for 
your Hostel,” he said. “I am a rich man with no ties, 
and whatever sum may he wanted I will willingly find. 
It will give me the greatest pleasure to do this for your 
sake.” 

The young man still held Sister Angela’s hand in his 
as he spoke. 

He had not meant to put his little speech that way. 
But the words had come from his heart to his lips, and 
he could not recall them. 

That Sister Angela understood all that they meant 
was quickly evident. 

Her cheeks flushed a little, her eyes drooped before 
his earnest gaze. 

“You must not say that, Mr. Fairfax,” she said. 


130 


THE DEVIL IN LOHDOH 


gently, but with a little quiver in her voice. ^^Wbat you 
are doing is for the sake of a cause that you know to 
he a good, a useful, and a noble one.” 

^^Yes,” returned the young man, eagerly, still clasp- 
ing the hand that the blushing girl in her confusion 
tried to withdraw. am glad to help a noble cause, 
but it was you who first led me to see how noble it was. 
I love you, Angela.” 

^^DonT say any more, Mr. Fairfax, please.” 

Sister Angela had recovered her self-possession, and 
these words were spoken with a tone of quiet command. 

Alan Fairfax bent his head in token of submission. 

^‘Forgive me,” he said. was wrong to speak to 
you as I have done — ^here. Good-bye.” 

The girl looked at him a little sadly. Then she held 
out her hand. ^^Good-by,” she said, ^^but donT forget 
your promise.” 

“My promise?” 

“Yes ; the promise you made me this afternoon about 
Lady Halcombe. I am so interested in her story. It 
is such a strange one, but I can hardly believe that she 
is telling us the truth.” 

The mention of Lady Halcombe’s name recalled to 
the young man the earlier conversation he had had 
with Sister Angela. In the excitement and confusion 
of the declaration into which he had allowed his feel- 
ings to betray him, everything else had passed from his 
mind. 

“Yes,” he said, eagerly; “I will keep my promise. 
When shall I see you again to tell you the result of my 
— of my investigation ?” 



rage 130 


c 


0 


THE LADIES’ PAKADISE 


131 


^^When you like,” replied the Sister. ^^Come on Sat- 
urday evening. It is our Hospitality night, you know. 
Sister Emily is the hostess of the evening, and I assist 
her. You have never been to one of our Hospitality 
evenings. It will interest you. Good-night; we shall 
expect you. I am most anxious to know if Lady Hal- 
combe’s story about her visits to the opium dens of the 
East End are true, or if they exist only in the unfortu- 
nate woman’s disordered imagination.” 

***** 

As Alan Fairfax walked home to the Splendid his 
feelings were of a mixed character. 

He felt that he had taken a false step. Outside in 
the busy streets, away from the gentle girl who had 
taken such complete possession of his heart, he realized 
the unwisdom of his impulsive act. 

At first he only felt annoyed with himself, then he 
began to feel a little ashamed of himself. 

It seemed to him that he had done a cowardly thing. 
Admitted as a worker in a good cause to friendly in- 
timacy with the Sisters of a Mission of Social Service, 
he had presumed upon the contribution he had made to 
its funds to make a declaration of love to a young and 
beautiful girl who was devoting her life to the work. 

But, whether he had acted indiscreetly or not, he was 
deeply in love with Sister Angela, and gradually all 
other considerations vanished before the most important 
one of all. 

Had she at parting reminded him that he had made 
a promise which she hoped he would fulfil in order to 
let him know that she forgave him for making love to 


132 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


her, not only at an inopportune moment, but in a place 
where the last thing expected of the workers was that 
they should occupy their minds with their own affairs ? 

The more he thought over his ^^mistake’’ the more 
the young millionaire regretted it. After all, he was a 
comparative stranger, not only to the Sisters, but to 
the pastor who was at the head of the Mission, and who 
had so cordially welcomed him to St. Ethelbert’s. 

And, for all he knew. Sister Angela might be en- 
gaged. She was young and pretty. 

The last thought made him, perhaps, more ill at ease 
than the thought that he had taken a false step in his 
wooing. 

But, whatever the situation might be, he had made 
Sister Angela a promise, and he would keep it faith- 
fully. 

She had told him that the previous Saturday evening, 
when the hall of the Mission was open to all who would 
enter, and one of the free concerts which the Mission 
was in the habit of giving was drawing to a close, a 
woman of about forty had wandered in, and attracted 
general attention by her strange appearance. 

A good-looking woman still, there was a look in her 
eyes that made Sister Angela, who went to her to speak 
a few words of welcome, think that she was not quite 
right in her mind. 

She spoke at first a little incoherently, but like a 
woman of refinement, and her dress, which was shabby, 
had a certain neatness that is never found in a drunken 
woman. 

When the concert was over the woman did not rise 


THE LADIES’ PAKADISE 133 

to leave. She told the Sisters she had nowhere to go, 
and she said that she was penniless. 

A lodging for the night was secured for her in the 
home of one of the women workers of the Mission who 
lived near. But the head of the Mission who had spoken 
to the stranger had the same idea' as Angela, that she 
was not right in her mind, and as it was not thought 
wise to let one of their staff of workers have a possible 
lunatic in her home. Sister Angela sent the next morn- 
ing for a doctor. 

The doctor saw the woman, talked to her, and at once 
came to the conclusion that she was a victim of the 
drug habit, and had come to the Mission Hall and ac- 
cepted aid because she had no longer the money to pur- 
chase the particular drug to which she was addicted. 

The doctor having given it as his opinion that the 
woman was not dangerous, she was allowed to remain, 
and the care she received soon had a good effect upon 
her. 

Sister Angela had obtained from her a coherent 
story. The woman who had wandered into the Concert 
Hall of St. Ethelbert’s late on Saturday night confessed 
that she was the widow of a baronet, that she had a 
right to call herself Lady Halcombe, and that she had 
for the past two or three years been an opium smoker. 
She said that she had practised the habit first in Hew 
York, soon after her husband died there, that she had 
been introduced to an opium den in that city which 
was frequented in the daytime entirely by women, and 
that on her return to London she had gone to a private 
establishment in the East End, and had been in the 


134 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


habit of spending days in a house, every room of which 
was let to women opium smokers. 

Under the influence of the drug she had become en- 
tirely careless of everything, and when the money she 
brought back from America — the proceeds of the sale 
of her effects there — was gone, she had found herself 
without means, without shelter, and without friends. 
The rent of the room in the opium den was a guinea 
a day. She had paid her last guinea on the Wednes- 
day before she came to St. Ethelbert^s. 

On the Thursday and the Friday she had been with- 
out shelter — she had passed the night on a seat in 
Trafalgar Square, opposite the National Gallery. 

On the Saturday she had gone to Regent’s Park and 
lain down among the shrubs till a park keeper found 
her at closing time and turned her out. 

Wandering back to the West, determined to go to the 
Embankment and throw herself into the river, she had 
passed the Mission Hall and had seen the announce- 
ment outside, ‘^All are welcome.” The music had at- 
tracted her, and she had entered. 

Angela had ascertained that a portion of this story 
was true. Sir James Halcombe was the second baronet, 
and his father was a city man, who had been made a 
baronet for his public services. The only son, who in- 
herited the title, had been a heavy drinker and a gam- 
bler as well. A bankrupt in this country, he had gone 
to America with his wife, who had been a bookkeeper 
at an hotel when he married her. 

In America he had traded on his title and made 
enough, in ways not always too reputable, to live in com- 


THE LADIES^ PAKADISE 


135 


fort. But at his death he had left nothing for his wife 
save a few hundreds at the bank and the household fur- 
niture. This was the story Lady Halcombe had told 
Sister Angela. Angela had told the story in confidence 
to Fairfax, and had asked him if he could ascertain if 
it was really true that there were opium dens in Lon- 
don which were frequented by women. 

Since his experience of a Saturday night in the worst 
street in London, Fairfax had not had recourse to the 
Indian Rajah’s ring. 

But he knew that without it it would be impossible 
for him to penetrate the secrets of the opium dens of 
the East End. 

He had never been in one in his life, and had always 
looked upon them as largely the inventions of fictionists 
and sensational writers. 

That night, after dining in the restaurant of the 
Splendid, he retired to his own apartments, and, placing 
the Rajah’s ring upon his finger, summoned his guide 
to his presence. 

* * * * * ' 

Between ten and eleven o’clock that night Fairfax 
and his companion stood at the top of a narrow, ill- 
lighted street in the neighborhood of Limehouse. 

‘‘There are a score of opium dens in this street and 
in the one across the road,” said the Prince. “They 
are all kept by Chinese, and most of the Chinese are 
married to English women.” 

“Are the dens all of the same character?” asked 
Fairfax. 

“Oh, no ; they cater for all classes of Orientals. Some 


136 


THE DEVIL IlSr LOHDOH 


are decent, well-ordered seamen^s boarding-houses, 
scrupulously clean and well-managed. The lodgers are 
petty officers, stewards, etc. These have good rooms, 
furnished in the English style, but opium smoking is 
general.’’ 

^^And the common class ?” 

^^Are different altogether. Chinese sailors and Las- 
cars are the lodgers. Over twenty will be accommo- 
dated side by side in one long room. There is a good 
deal of gambling in these houses, and they are opium 
dens in all that the words mean to European ears.” 

^^Let us go into one.” 

They made their way down a gloomy street of old- 
fashioned jumbled together houses that looked as if they 
had formed part of the London of two hundred years 
ago. 

The street was filled with Chinese, Lascars, and 
dusky Orientals, and there were a few Japanese loung- 
ing about. The Chinese sailors were dressed in the 
European fashion, wearing blue serge suits, and those 
who still kept the pigtail had it coiled up under a dark 
cap. 

There were a number of English women and girls in 
this street, and in one of the Chinese shops Eairfax 
noticed some children with English features, but al- 
mond shaped eyes. 

Half-way down the gloomy street the Prince stopped 
in front of a black-looking door, and pushed it open. 

Directing Fairfax to follow him, he went along a 
narrow, dark passage. 

At the end of it was a long room with a low ceiling. 


THE LADIES’ PAKADISE 


137 


At first Fairfax could hardly make out what it con- 
tained. At the far end, on a broken table, was an oil 
lamp. J ust inside the doorway — to which there was no 
door — was a dull red fire, in front of which a large 
black cat was seated. 

In front of the fire was a gas stove, and on this was 
an earthenware basin which was filled with a thick, 
sticky substance which looked like black treacle. 

^^This is the opium in preparation,” said the Prince ; 
“a good deal that is consumed in these places is of had 
quality. The proprietors make a larger profit on it.” 

When Fairfax became accustomed to the gloom he 
saw that all along the wall there were small beds, stand- 
ing not side by side, but head to head, and on each of 
these beds there lay two men. Between them was a 
tray, on which was a small lamp, an opium pipe, some 
opium in a little bowl, and the implement with which 
the opium is rolled up and placed in the bowl of the 
pipe. 

There were about twenty men lying on the beds. 
Some were smoking, others had smoked, and were lying 
in a drowsy condition, with half-open eyes. 

There was not a sound to be heard. All the men 
were more or less under the influence of the drug. 

The smokers were of varying shades of color. There 
were the ordinary, yellow-complexioned Chinese, but 
some of the sailors were as dark as negroes. One or 
two of the Mongolians were almost white, and the Prince 
explained to Fairfax that they had probably a Euro- 
pean parent. 

^There are scores of such places for the ordinary 


138 


THE DEVIL IN LOHDOH 


sailor/^ said the Prince. ‘‘The proprietor finds the 
crews for ships, and lets his lodgers .know when men 
are wanted. In the “superior’’ establishments, the 
Chinese proprietor is in telephonic communication with 
the docks. 

“But many of the places are opium dens, and very 
little else. Many things happen in these places which 
would considerably astonish the good people of London 
if they could hear the plain truth.” 

The scene was a curious one, and Fairfax, looking 
at it for the first time, found an element of romance in 
the mystery and silence of this patch of the Orient in 
the heart of London. 

“Let us see one of the ‘superior’ establishments,” he 
said, presently. 

They entered a house higher up the street and found 
the proprietor and his wife, an Englishwoman, sitting 
in a cozy little parlor which was quite a Dickensy do- 
mestic interior. There were English pictures on the 
wall and English books in a little bookcase, and old 
English china on the mantelshelf. 

But when they went up stairs they found the joss on 
the landing, and lights burning in front of it. 

“In one of the big houses,” said the Prince, “there is 
a properly fitted up temple where the sailors go through 
a religious ceremony before they go to sea, but the joss 
is in every opium den in London. You will have no- 
ticed on the walls the Chinese New Years’ cards and 
inscriptions in Chinese. Some of them are mottoes and 
proverbs, but many of them are charms.” 

In the upstair rooms of the “superior” house they 


THE LADIES’ PAKADISE 


139 


found only two beds in each room, and each bed was 
occupied by one guest only. But each had his tray and 
a lamp and an opium pipe. 

^^And now,” said Fairfax, as they came out into the 
street, want to see the women’s opium den. I want 
to see what sort of women use such a place. It seems 
incredible that there are enough women smokers in Lon- 
don to keep such an establishment going.” 

The Prince hesitated. was a little surprised when 
you told me, as we came here, that you knew of ^The 
Ladies’ Paradise,’ as it is called, but if you want to 
know what kind of women patronize it you had better 
come here with me again in the daytime and see them 
as they enter the street. That is the only way to get a 
correct idea of the class of women who are regular 
opium smokers.” 

^^When shall we come ?” said Fairfax. 'To-morrow ?” 

"Yes. Wait a moment. I want to ask a question.” 

The Prince returned to one of the houses they had 
previously visited. Fairfax waited outside. 

Presently the Prince came out. An English woman 
accompanied him to the door. 

"I have got what I wished to know,” he said to Fair- 
fax. "That is the English woman who arranges with 
the ladies who love ‘the black smoke.’ She has charge 
of ‘The Ladies’ Paradise,’ which is entirely reserved 
for women during the daytime.” 

"But there are women who stop for many days, I was 
told.” 

"Hot in the ‘Paradise.’ They take lodgings in a 
house, which is not in this street, and where they are 


140 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDON 


the ^boarders.’ The Taradise’ is the place to see first. 
Afterward you shall, if you wish, see the upper part 
of a house in which there are women opium smokers 
who remain in them lost to their friends, and often 
reckoned for a time among the mysterious disappear- 
ances.” 

^^To-morrow, then, at twelve. I know the street now.” 

^^Very good,” replied the Prince. will meet you 
here at noon to-morrow, and if we are fortunate you 
will see some of the fair clients of ^The Paradise’ ar- 
rive.” 

* * * 4e- * 

As Alan Fairfax, on his way to his hotel, passed 
through the lighted streets and mingled with, the thor- 
oughly English crowd, he found it difficult to persuade 
himself that he had not imagined the strange scenes of 
Chinatown in London they had just witnessed. 

And, in spite of the Prince’s admission, he could not 
quite bring himself to believe that on the morrow he 
was to see well-dressed women of good position — ^women 
able to pay a guinea for the use of a room for a few 
hours — making their way to an opium den of which 
they were regular patronesses. 


THE CHILDKEN OE TKAGEDY 141 


CHAPTER XI 

THE CHILDREN OF TRAGEDY 

At three o’clock in the afternoon Alan Fairfax walked 
slowly up the strange street of the Orient in London. 

It seemed to him that he had been assisting at a scene 
from the Arabian Xights’ Entertainments suddenly 
shifted to the capital of the British Empire, with the 
characters from the story of ^^Aladdin” mixed up with 
twentieth century London types. 

He remembered that in most of the musical comedies 
he had witnessed, in whatever far-off land the scenes 
were laid, there was always a little party of ^^English 
ladies,” who mixed with the natives, and assisted to 
carry on whatever plot there might be in the story. 

The street was a sordid one, filled with seamen’s 
boarding-houses and stunted, grimy-looking litle shops, 
and the native people who lounged about among the 
Orientals were rough in their ways and coarse in their 
language. 

Yet down this street he had seen well-dressed and ap- 
parently well-to-do Englishwomen come along and enter 
one of the houses which he knew to be an opium den. 
He had stood at the corner of the street with his guide, 
and watched some of the ladies ^^arrive.” 

One had driven up in a hansom, and dismissed it 
just before she got to the entrance to Chinatown. 

Another had got out of the electric tram, and had 


142 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


seemed to hesitate before she turned into the narrow 
and unsavory byway. 

Two young women had come together. They were 
very quietly dressed and there was a ^^serious’’ look 
about them that made Fairfax at first fancy that they 
were district visitors, or women workers, or something 
of the kind, but they had entered the Chinese house. 

^^Do Englishwomen come here every day?” asked 
Fairfax, turning to his companion. 

‘^FTo; during a certain season of the year there are 
always a few English and American women, but the 
number varies. One day none may come, on another 
day three or four will come.” 

^L\re they — are they women in good positions ?” 

^^Mostly. The first lady you saw stop her hansom 
at the corner is a prominent member of the Smart Set. 
A rich American woman brought her first, and the nov- 
elty of the thing was a new sensation for her. She told 
some of her more adventurous friends, and that is how 
the new pilgrimage of the fashionable West began. 

^Tt is not likely ever to be a very extensive one. There 
are a good many difficulties to be got over before the 
smoking of opium becomes a pleasant way of passing 
an afternoon. But when once these have been sur- 
mounted and a man or a woman takes to the habit, it is 
very hard to break away from. The opium smoker is 
the slave of his pipe. Women when once they have 
yielded to the habit are as completely in its toils as 
men. But there are, of course, not many women who 
would care to risk coming to a place like this to indulge 
in it. 


THE CHILDEEH OF TKAGEDY 143 

women who do, the ^diablerie^ of the thing is 
part of its fascination. 

^‘But the opium habit is rare among women. The 
drug habit, that has hundreds in its grip, is one that 
they can indulge in their own homes. There are very 
few women who could indulge in opium smoking under 
their own roof. Even the Englishmen who have ac- 
quired the habit come to an opium den to indulge in 
it.” 

At Fairfax’s suggestion they walked along the street 
and paused in front of the house which the Prince as- 
sured him was called ^^The Ladies’ Paradise.” Every 
window was closely curtained. 

Would you like to go in ?” said the Prince ; '^there 
is a way in which I can manage it for you.” 

^^Ho,” replied the young man, shaking his head. 
have seen enough to satisfy me that the story told by 
the lady I mentioned to you is true. I want to see no 
more. Besides, they would surely not admit men to 
the house — you told me that in the daytime it is re- 
served for ladies.” 

^^You forget that I am able to overcome little diffi- 
culties of that sort. I can take you where you could 
not go with any one else. It is to that I believe that I 
am indebted for the favor of your company, and have 
thus been privileged to be your guide in your journeys 
off the beaten track in the wonderful city of London.” 

‘‘And this,” exclaimed Fairfax looking up at the 
dingy “Paradise,” “is one of the strangest things you 
have shown me. I can hardly believe even now that be- 
hind those closely drawn curtains Englishwomen are 


144 : 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


lying and losing themselves in the dreams of the opium 
smoker. They must have a good deal of courage to 
come to a place like this.” 

^^Yes, at one time when the ^craze’ first took the little 
set who started it, there was an idea of forming a small 
club and taking premises at the West End where mem- 
bers could indulge in the habit in a more refined and 
luxurious environment.” 

woman’s opium club?” exclaimed Fairfax. 

‘‘Yes, this is the age of eccentric clubs. A little time 
ago there was a Morphia Club. Some daring spirits 
not long since so far exceeded the wildest dreams of 
the Bloomerites as to start a small and particularly 
private club in which all the members were to be dressed 
in male attire when on the club premises. It was to be 
called ‘The Rosalind.’ ” 

“Does such a club exist now?” said Fairfax. 

“Ho,” replied the Prince with a smile, “it broke up 
because the president, a woman of quite a serious turn 
of mind, insisted that all the members should wear their 
hair cut short.” 

“I can believe anything,” said Fairfax, “after what 
I have seen this afternoon. Come, there is nothing 
more that I wish to see here. Let us go.” 

“There is something more to be seen if you care to. 
There is a place in a street across the road which is 
frequented by hasheesh eaters.” 

Fairfax shook his head. “That doesn’t interest me,” 
he said. “I have seen a man once under the influence 
of hasheesh, and I don’t want the experience again.” 

They had walked to the top of the street, and Fair- 


THE CHILDKEH OE TKAGEDY 145 


fax was about to board an electric car when he saw a 
number of little boys standing in a group and looking 
into a sweetstuff shop. They were laughing and talking 
merrily enough, but something in the appearance of 
them attracted the young man’s attention. 

The lads were all dressed alike in ordinary clothes, 
but the collar of their short jackets was red. 

‘^What school do these boys belong to?” he asked. 

‘^Those? Oh, they are Barnardo boys. That big 
building across the street is one of the Barnardo Homes."'"' 

‘T have heard of them. Heglected, ill-treated, and 
starved, the children of tragedy from all over the land 
are received there and given a chance of happy life. 
Can I visit the Home ?” 

The Prince shrugged his shoulders. 

dare say,” he replied, ^^but you don’t want me 
to take you there. How, if you want to see a really 
interesting institution, from my point of view, I can 
take you to one in another part of London which ap- 
peals to me strongly. It is run by a man who collects 
money for it all over the country. His institution oc- 
cupies premises which cost him £50 a year, and there 
are at present about fourteen inmates. There is no 
pampering there. I have seen the young objects of his 
noble charity while out for a walk pick up cabbage 
stalks in the street and devour them greedily. The pro- 
prietor is a most amusing dog. His appeals are works 
of art. I read them with particular admiration for his 
genius.” 

^^You mean he is a man who preys upon the charit- 
able?” 


146 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


suppose that is what you would call him. But 
he is a humbug after my own heart. Let me take 
you to his charitable institution; I think it wiU amuse 
you.” 

^^Ho, thank you,” said Eairfax, '^but, pray, donT let 
me keep you from your friend. I am going across to 
the Barnardo Home. That is the sort of place I want to 
see.” 

^^Then it is good-by,” said the Prince. “I can be 

of no service to you there.” 

***** 

As the young millionaire passed through the doors 
of the Barnardo Institution there came to his mind a 
passage he had read in connection with this world-fa- 
mous work of humanity: — 

^Tf the tales of tragedy in which some of the little 
children who are mercifully taken into the Barnardo 
Homes are concerned could be published in their naked 
truth, the public conscience would be startled as it has 
been startled by few revelations of modern times.” 

Politely received in the vast hive of industry, with 
its splendid space for recreation — for ^^Work and Play” 
is the motto of the institution — ^Alan Eairfax, explain- 
ing that he was deeply interested in the great problems 
of London’s helpless and neglected child life, and the 
work of those who were seeking to save the greatest of 
our national assets, the Nation’s children, was cheer- 
fully accorded the sad privilege of looking the tragedies 
of child life in the face. 

He looked upon the children who had been lifted out 
of the tragedy into an atmosphere of sympathy and 


THE CHILDEEH OF TKAGEDY 147 


hopeful endeavor, with the traces of the tragic record 
still written large in many a young face and many a 
crippled form. 

He saw a lad of fifteen enjoying a merry game of 
football in the big play-yard, but with a strange hunted 
look in his eyes. 

He drew the attention of his kindly guide to the boy. 

^^That looks like a tragedy,” he said. 

^‘Yes, it was and is,” was the reply. ^^The tragedy of 
which this boy was a victim haunts him still. Last night 
in the small hours he leaped from his bed crying out, 
‘Save me ! save me 

“When his companions in the dormitory, roused by 
his cries, asked him what was the matter, he said he had 
had a nightmare. 

“In his sleep he had seen the tragedy that brought 
him here re-enacted, though it happened some years 
ago. 

“He came to us in the saddest circumstances. 

“His father, a widower, married again and had a 
young family. Trouble came, and parents and family 
were reduced to the worst extremity. 

“At last they were homeless. One night the father 
and some of the young children, while tramping, lay 
down for the night on a green open space near Epping 
Forest. 

“In the night that lad woke with a cry of terror. He 
felt a hand clutching him by the throat. 

“It was midnight, and his horrified eyes looked up 
into his fathers face. 

“The father had a knife in his hand. 


148 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


^^The boy struggled and fought for his life, got free 
and ran away shouting into the night. 

^^At dawn when he ventured back again two of the 
children lay dead on the grass. The father had gone 
mad and killed them. 

^^The terror of that awful scene has never been lifted 
from the boy’s mind. He has ^nightmares,’ as he calls 
<them, and goes through that terrible fight for his life 
again and again. Last night the scene was so real that 
he woke the whole dormitory with his cries.” 

A healthy, happy-looking little lad with a bright and 
intelligent face came up and saluted the official and de- 
livered a message. 

^^That boy looks as though he had no haunting 
visions,” said Fairfax. 

^^He has fortunately dismissed them. He is a strong- 
minded, brave little fellow, and is turning out splen- 
didly, but he came to us from a home of the most abom- 
inable cruelty. 

^^His father, a heavy drinker, used to leave him when 
he was a little mite, chained up to the leg of a table. 
Once the father, who was a widower, did not come home 
for two days and nights. All that time the child was 
chained up without food and without water. When the 
father was prosecuted we took the boy. He looks all 
right now, doesn’t he?” 

^^But, of course, all the children the Homes take in 
are not the victims of cruelty?” 

^^Ho, but they are all destitute — we only take the 
destitute — and they are of all kinds; we have child 
wanderers who cannot recollect a home, we have had 


THE CHILDREN OF TRAGEDY 149 


lads of sixteen who did not know their letters, we have 
them crippled and deformed, bright and intelligent, 
feeble-minded and afflicted, blind, deaf, and dumb. All 
come to us destitute, and we keep them all in our vari- 
ous Homes. We do not take the epileptic and insane. 
These require other guardianship, but with these excep- 
tions we take destitute children from all over the land, 
and do our utmost by careful industrial and technical 
training to turn them into citizens useful to themselves 
and profitable to the community. 

^^The progress they make, directly they receive proper 
care and nourishment is often amazing, even to us. But 
there is not one of them who does not come to us a 
tragedy of child life, and often an appalling tragedy.’’ 

^^How many of these tragedies,” asked Fairfax, as 
he looked around upon the wonderful scene, ^^have you 
dealt with this year?” 

received in 1907 two thousand one hundred and 
eleven children. These are the new admissions, and 
every little life was darkened by the shadow of destitu- 
tion, and often, alas ! by the squalid infamies of beg- 
gary, vice and crime.” 

^‘1 know a street in London,” said Fairfax, ^Vhere 
the bulk of the people are professional beggars trading 
on their children. You take some of those children 
here, I expect ?” 

^^Yes. We have a little lad here quite recently brought 
in. He had had both his legs amputated. His father 
and mother tramped the country with him putting him 
. down by the roadside with his poor little stumps ex- 
posed in order to excite the pity of the passers-by. 


150 


THE DEVIL IH LOHDOH 


^^They did well, but spent all they got in drink, and 
the poor little cripple was half starved and cruelly 
beaten. The boy is happy now, but in spite of all he 
suffered at their hands, he still speaks with affection of 
his father and mother.’’ 

‘^Poor little mite !” exclaimed Fairfax. ^^What would 
have been his fate in the old days when the sacred right 
of the parent was everything and the happiness of the 
children nothing?” 

^^The lot of thousands of children must have been 
horrible in those days. As the law stood then the parent 
could do anything he liked with a child short of murder- 
ing it in cold blood.” 

A big, strong-looking lad crossed the play-yard. 

^^That is a curious case,” said the olficial. ^‘That 
boy can have a fit — or a remarkable imitation of a fit 
— whenever he likes. He becomes rigid, and has every 
symptom of an acute seizure. But it is an inherited 
habit, if one can use the term. He was brought up 
by his father to have fits for begging purposes. The 
father was a professional ^fit impersonator,’ and got 
his living by it, and he brought the boy up to his own 
trade. This boy’s fits deceived even me at first, until 
I discovered that he had offered To have a fit for two- 
pence’ if the boys in the dormitory would subscribe that 
amount. We cured him of his fits, and I think we are 
going to make him a good workman at a more honest 
trade. 

^‘Have you seen our working lads in the shops ? They 
are growing out of their childhood’s tragedy most of 
them. We see the tragedy at its height, with all the 


THE CHILDKEH OE TEAGEDY 151 

stress of it upon the unfortunate little victims. You 
should spend a day at one of our ^ever-open doors.’ We 
have thirteen in various parts of the country, and the 
tragedies pass through them at all hours of the day and 
night !” 

^^Many of those who come to you are very young, are 
they not 

‘‘Some of them are brought to us mere babies. At 
our ‘open doors’ there have been little mites of five or 
six who have crept in, pathetic pictures of destitution 
and despairing infancy.” 

“You cannot know the life story of such children, of 
course ?” 

“We have now close upon eight thousand children 
in our various homes and institutions, and every 
single case is thoroughly investigated. Ho destitute 
child is ever refused, hut we guard in every possible 
way against a work of charity and social service being 
abused.” 

“Hearly eight thousand destitute children, and the 
majority of them the children of tragedy!” exclaimed 
the young millionaire, sorrowfully. “It is a sad pic- 
ture I” 

“But it has its brighter side. The best of these chil- 
dren become through our system honest, hard-working, 
useful men and women. The stream of young life that 
flows through these doors is diverted from what ? From 
the swamps of chronic pauperism and chronic crim- 
inality.” 

“It is a noble work you are doing,” exclaimed Fair- 
fax. “How I have seen what it is for myself and learned 


152 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


what I have I shall consider it a pleasure to enroll my- 
self among its supporters.” 

^^But you have heard of all this before, I suppose 

^^Oh, yes,” exclaimed Fairfax. remembered the 
tragic circumstances in which it was first brought to 
my notice directly I saw the words, ^Dr. Barnardo’s 
Homes,’ outside this building. It was a tragedy of child 
life that I learned by the merest accident. 

was in a northern town where the incident hap- 
pened. A woman had been hanged. On the morning 
of her execution her two children — a girl of ten and a 
girl of twelve — with a full knowledge of the terrible 
event of which every one around them was talking, ran 
away from the house in which they had been tem- 
porarily taken out of charity, and were found wander- 
ing near a river. 

^‘The girls in their shame and agony had determined 
to commit suicide. 

^^They were found in time, but they were friendless 
and destitute. Ho one wished to have the children of 
a woman who had been hanged in their little home. 

^^When the circumstances were narrated to me I was 
told that the two children had been taken into one of 
the Barnardo Homes, where they would not be known 
by the terrible name their unhappy mother had be- 
queathed to them. 

^^They were pretty and intelligent girls, I was as- 
sured, and my informant told me that the Home would 
be their moral and social salvation. 

‘^From that moment I have been interested in the 
Barnardo Institutions, but it is only to-day that I have 


THE CHILDREN OF TRAGEDY 153 


had the opportunity of learning how admirable is the 
system on which they are conducted.” 

***** 

Alan Fairfax went out into the busy life of the street 
a happier man. Cheered and inspired by the splendid 
work of human service rendered to helpless childhood 
that he had seen, he had almost forgotten the street in 
which there are dens in which men — aye, and women, 
too — seek the aid of a deadly drug that they may for- 
get the duties and responsibilities of clean and whole- 
some life. 

The street of the ^^black smoke” of forgetfulness, and 
the street of the splendid remembrance of the claims of 
suffering childhood, were within a stone’s throw of each 
other. 


154 


THE DEVIL IN LOHDOH 


CHAPTEK Xn 

IX THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEX^S 

Alait Fairfax sat in the Strangers’ Gallery at the 
House of Commons and listened to a great debate. 

The measure before the House was a notable one, and 
dealt with one of the great social problems of the day. 

Fairfax listened with the deepest interest to the elo- 
quent words in which speaker after speaker dwelt upon 
the evil conditions which this measure would ameliorate. 

Some of the speakers discussed the terrible conditions 
prevailing in the East End slums, and dwelt emphati- 
cally upon the cruelties imposed upon the poor by ra- 
pacious landlords of an alien race, the heartless house- 
farmers who trade upon the miseries of the masses 
brought about by congested areas. 

It was the second reading of the Bill, and Fairfax 
had come in as the debate was nearing its end. 

He waited for the division, and when the second 
reading had been carried by a large majority he left the 
gallery and went out into Palace Yard. 

His travels behind the scenes in London, the knowl- 
edge he had acquired of the terrible conditions under 
which a vast proportion of the population live — condi- 
tions in some instances almost unbelievable — ^had 
touched him deeply, and he left the House of the Law- 
givers with a deep feeling of gratitude in his heart that 
the men who represented the people took such a 


IN THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEN’S 155 


righteous view of the situation, and were striving so 
earnestly to bring about a better state of things. 

He felt happy that evening, and he had every cause 
to be happy. On the previous Saturday he had been 
present at the Hall of Hospitality at St. Ethelbert’s, 
when the Sisters of the People received their guests, 
and he had interested Sister Angela very much when 
he told her of his adventures among the opium smokers, 
and his discovery of the truth of Lady Halcombe’s 
statement. 

After the ^^Evening Party” broke up, the Kev. Arthur 
Selwyn had asked him to come into his room, and had 
smilingly informed the ^^new recruit” that Sister Angela 
had told him, as the head of the Mission, of what had 
passed between Mr. Fairfax and herself. 

The young millionaire was not quite prepared for 
the official discussion of his ^indiscretion,” but the 
kindly pastor soon put him at his ease. 

have formed a very high opinion of you, Mr. Fair- 
fax,” he said, ^^and I know that you are not merely a 
very wealthy man, but one who wants to use his wealth 
wisely. I have a great regard for Sister Angela, and 
I take a fatherly interest in her, for she has no near 
relatives of her own, and has so far devoted herself en- 
tirely to our work here. I am sure that you would find 
in her not only a wife of whom any man might be 
proud, but an ideal helper in the good work you hope 
to do by personal service, backed by a big banking ac- 
count. 

^^Sister Angela has told me frankly that she admires 
you, and so, my dear fellow, if you wish to resume the 


156 


THE DEVIL IH LONDOH 


little conversation you had with her the other day, you 
may do so with my full approval.” 

The clergyman held out his hand, and Fairfax 
clasped it gratefully. 

They went out of the little room together. Sister 
Angela and Sister Emily were just bidding the last of 
the guests good-hy. 

The clergyman called Sister Emily to him. He had 
some instructions to give her. 

Sister Angela was going to her home. Alan Fairfax 
asked if he might walk a little way with her, and his 
offer was accepted with a smile that was more eloquent 
than words. 

***** 

As Alan Fairfax came out into the Palace Yard after 
listening to the debate in the House, he stood for a mo- 
ment hesitating. It was only ten o’clock, and he did 
not want to go home. Sister Angela was away from 
London for a couple of days; she had gone into the 
country to see an old friend of her father’s, who was her 
trustee, and to tell him and his wife of her engagement. 

Fairfax, having nothing to do, strolled leisurely away 
from the House of Commons. 

It was a bright clear night. He stopped for a mo- 
ment and looked at the gray old Abbey, bathed in the 
soft moonlight; then he looked hack at the towers of 
silence that crowned the House of the voices of the peo- 
ple. 

Bordering the gray beauty of the House of the Laws 
of God and the towering majesty of the Houses of the 
Laws of Man by Parliament Square, and around this 


m THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEN’S 157 

were the streets and squares, the highways and the by- 
ways of the City of Westminster. 

He wondered what Westminster itself — the West- 
minster that lies hidden away — was like. He remem- 
bered the Prince had more than once hinted that he 
should be pleased to show him a little of the life of the 
people who live in the shadow of the Abbey and the 
shadow of St. Stephen’s. 

He had the next day free. Sister Angela would still 
be away. As he walked hack to the Splendid he made 
up his mind that he would make one more experiment 
with the aid of the Eajah’s ring. 

* * * * * 

It was noon as Alan Fairfax and his guide stood in 
the broad space by the Abbey. 

^^This is the site of the old Sanctuary,” said the 
Prince. ^Tt will interest you to know that Sanctuary 
has been of the greatest possible service to me. The 
lawless vagabonds flying from justice who availed them- 
selves of Sanctuary have always left their mark upon 
the district. Sanctuary was established here a thousand 
years ago. To-day there are parts of Westminster 
which still retain the character that Sanctuary gave 
them in the days of Edward the Confessor.” 

^^Do you mean to say that the character of the place 
has remained unchanged for a thousand years!” ex- 
claimed Fairfax. 

mean to say that in the shadow of the Abbey 
there are still slums and by-ways, peopled by lawless 
vagabonds. Come and see for yourself.” 

The Prince led the young millionaire into a street 


158 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


hardly a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament. 

At one end there were a number of dingy-looking 
houses, and outside each of them stood a knot of slat- 
ternly, unkempt women. 

^These are women’s lodging-houses of the lowest 
description,” said the Prince. ^^There is nothing worse 
in the East End. There are a number of men’s lodging- 
houses here also, and the lodgers are of the roughest 
class. In one of the alleys running off this street there 
is a colony of young thieves. In another the bulk of 
the inhabitants are professional beggars. 

^^You remember the Beggars’ Festival in Victor 
Hugo’s ^Hotre Dame?’ I could show you a Beggars’ 
Festival in the shadow of the Abbey. 

^^The scenes in this street are often what you would 
call disgraceful. Until recently there were here two 
public-houses, in each of which a man had been mur- 
dered.” 

‘^They are not here now?” asked Fairfax. 

^^Ho. The report of the murders was in all the 
papers, and the publicity caused the authorities to ^do 
something.’ 

^^Here is a nice place for people to live in,” said the 
Prince, as he beckoned Fairfax to follow him down a 
long winding paved alley, with little two-story houses 
on one side of it, and a high wall on the other, that al- 
most shut out the light of day. 

‘^You can see what class of people live here,” he said. 
‘^The women, young and old, have their story written 
in their faces.” 

^This place ought to have been closed for human 


IN THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEN’S 159 

habitation long ago,” said Fairfax, as he squeezed 
himself into a doorway to let a donkey barrow pass 
him. 

^^Yes, but there have been half a dozen rehousing 
schemes discussed in the big House round the corner, 
and this object lesson still remains under the very noses 
of the legislators.” 

“And under their eyes,” said Fairfax. 

“Ho,” replied the Prince. “I doubt if the members 
of Parliament know very much about the Westminster 
that lies around them. They do not as a rule go about 
to see things for themselves, you know, even when the 
^things’ are at their very doors.” 

The visitors made their way through the alley, dis- 
turbing in their progress several small card parties, com- 
posed of lads who were sitting on the pavement and 
playing for money with penny packs of cards. 

“This used to be called the Boys’ Monte Carlo,” said 
the Prince, “but lately it has become inconvenient. 
There are too many horses brought through the alley to 
some stables at the end, and the boys have moved on to a 
street in which there is more room on the pavement. 

“This alley is one of two terrible areas in London 
that have the credit of assisting in ^the survival of the 
fittest.’ You will notice that the lads and young women 
you see coming out of the houses, or hanging about at 
the open doors, are physically very good specimens of 
the race.” 

“I have noticed that.” 

“The explanation is simple. The space is so narrow, 
the buildings are so old, that the sanitary authorities 


160 


THE DEVIL IN LONDON 


for many years were unable to do anything at all in 
the way of improvement. There is hardly any air, and 
very little light. In such an environment the weaklings 
die like flies. Only the very strongest survive. The 
people that you see are the strong and robust, whose 
physical qualities have enabled them to survive in such 
awful conditions.” 

Leaving ^The alley of the survivals,” the Prince con- 
ducted Fairfax to a winding street of little houses of 
quaint construction. In some the stairways were dark, 
and so narrow that an ordinary stout person had to 
squeeze his or her way up and down them. In some 
there was no staircase at all, access to the upper floors 
being given by means of a flight of wooden steps in the 
back yard. 

good many of the people who live here,” said the 
Prince, ^^are costermongers.” 

‘^There seems a good deal of poverty,” remarked Fair- 
fax, looking at some of the children who were in the 
street. 

^^Yes; but there is wealth as well. You should see 
the place on Sunday morning. That is pay-back day. 
There are women living in these houses who are local 
bankers. The costermongers borrow the money to go 
to market with on Friday, and pay back on Sunday 
morning.” 

^^At what rate of interest ?” 

^^Twopence in the shilling. These local bankers do 
an enormous business. Some years ago a woman living 
in a small house died and left a fortune of thirty thous- 
and pounds, She had made every farthing of it by 


IN THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEI^’S 161 

lending the costermongers their marketing money at 
twopence in the shilling.” 

^^There is a lot of crowding here,” suggested the 
young millionaire, when he had spent another half hour 
in the slums of Westminster; ^^and the housing condi- 
tions leave a good deal to be desired.” 

^^Yes ; and by the action of the authorities thousands 
of working people have been evicted and forced into 
congested areas. Look at those vast spaces boarded in 
and strewn with old building material. The whole of 
the tenants of these areas were evicted years ago, and 
the spaces laid bare are still vacant land ! This is the 
property of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The 
Ecclesiastical Commissioners have by their action 
ruined many of the smaller tradespeople here. They 
have dishoused their customers, and left the land lying 
idle.” 

Fairfax and his guide came out of an unsavory 
slum, crossed a vast space of waste land which had once 
been covered with working-class tenements, and 
the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey rose before 
them. 

‘^The Church and the State !” said the Prince with a 
mocking laugh, ‘^and you have seen what lies at their 
very doors.” 

^^Yes,” replied Fairfax, ^^and in the House of Com- 
mons yesterday, member after member denounced the 
alien house-farmers in vigorous terms. I did not hear 
anything said about the Ecclesiastical Commissioners !” 

^^Or the County Council, which in the sacred name 
of improvement’ has also been busy here. There is no 


162 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


part of London in which the evictions have been so 
wholesale and so merciless as here. There is no part 
of London in which the housing question has been more 
acute. Here are some of the lowest lodging-houses in 
London. Here are some of the worst slums in London. 
Yet yonder sits the wisdom of the nation making its 
laws, and yonder is Westminster Abbey. In the shadow 
of these mighty buildings, the House of the Laws of 
Man and the House of the Laws of God, I ought to have 
no territory, but as a matter of fact, this is one of my 
show places, and I am delighted to have had the oppor- 
tunity of taking you round.” 

^^But Westminster has been improved. Look at the 
magnificent street that has been cut through it. Look 
at the noble piles of mansions and fiats.” 

^Tlats !” exclaimed the Prince, laughing. “Oh, yes, 
I have nothing to say against the Elats, but if you ask 
some of the local clergy what their views are on the 
question you will get some interesting information. 
There are streets here where silks and satins have taken 
the place of rags. I have no reason to complain, but I 
believe some of the clergy who have spent their lives 
here would have preferred the rags to remain. How 
we are here, would you like to see the street near the 
Abbey where the Sunday Bird Fair is held? Shall I 
take you through the dangerous criminal area close to 
the Houses of Parliament ? Would you care to see the 
class of women in the lodging-houses in a street that lies 
cheek by jowl with the magnificent thoroughfare that is 
Westminster’s pride ?” 

“Ho, thank you,” replied Fairfax, gravely. “I have 


IN THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEN’S 163 

seen enough; but I will tell you what I should like to 
do.” 

''What is that?” 

"To organize a personally-conducted tour of members 
of Parliament through the district to which they come 
day after day to make the laws of the land. If I could 
do that I would make you go with us as our guide, and 
I would extend the tour to the whole of London.” 

"Thank you,” replied the Prince, shaking his head. 
"I am not anxious for the task. If your members of 
Parliament saw things for themselves before they talked 
about them in the House my plan of campaign might 
be seriously interfered with.” 

"But you forget!” exclaimed the young millionaire. 
"I have a ring that enables me to call upon you to do 
as I wish in this matter. If I invited a number of mem- 
bers of Parliament to personally investigate the social 
problems of the people as London shows them, I could 
compel you to be our guide and to take us where I wish.” 

The Prince looked keenly at the young man for a 
moment, then he bent his head as if in acquiescence. 

"It is for you to command,” he said. "It is for me 
to obey.” 

"Then I will do my best to organize such a tour,” 
replied Fairfax. "If I succeed I shall call upon you.” 

He held out his hand, upon which was the Ha j ah’s 
ring. "While I have this,” he said, "you have no choice 
but to obey.” 

"The ring that was given you by Blanche D’Artigny,” 
exclaimed the Prince. 

"Yes.” 


164 THE DEVIL IlST LOHDOH 

‘^Well, talk of tke devil — you know the proverb. Look 
yonder !” 

Fairfax looked in the direction his guide had pointed, 
but saw nothing to attract his attention. 

^^What do you mean said he. 

There was no reply. The Prince had vanished. 

The next moment Fairfax was astonished to see an 
old white-haired woman coming toward him. 

It was Blanche D’Artigny. 

‘^Ah monsieur!’^ she exclaimed. ^Ht is you! You, 
my benefactor. I had wondered if I should ever see 
you again. Ah, monsieur! the money you sent me I 
did not ask you for, but it was a great blessing to me — 
a great blessing!” 

The old woman seized the hand of the young mil- 
lionaire, and held it, bending over it, and kissing 
it. 

‘^Don’t do that, please,” exclaimed Fairfax, a little 
confused, for the passers-by had stopped to witness the 
strange scene. 

He withdrew his hand hastily, and the old woman, 
muttering to herself, disappeared in the little crowd 
that had gathered round, and Fairfax walked rapidly 
away. 

^^Poor old soul!” he said to himself. hope she 
did not think that I was ashamed to be seen with her. 
I owe her a great deal. But for the ring she gave me 
I should never have met Angela.” 

As he spoke he looked at the finger upon which the 
ring had been. 

The ring was no longer there. 


m THE SHADOW OF ST. STEPHEN’S 165 


The meaning of the old woman’s effusive greeting 
flashed upon him at once. 

She had taken his hand, and held it while she kissed 
it. In this way she had been able without his noticing 
it to withdraw the ring from his finger. 

He was sorry that she should have recovered her prop- 
erty in such a way as that. He would have given it to 
her again had she asked for it. 

He determined to go and tell her so. 

Late that afternoon he went to Soho. He found the 
street and he recognized the house. He knocked at the 
door and a young Frenchwoman opened it. 

‘‘There is an old lady who lives on the third fioor,” 
he said. “Can I see her ?” 

The young woman shook her head. 

“If monsieur means the old French lady, he cannot 
see her. She is dead.” 

“Dead!” 

“Yes, monsieur. She died a week ago in the hospital. 
After she was dead the priest who had attended her 
came here and took away all the property she had. It 
was a big traveling trunk. It was her last wish, he told 
us, that he should have it.” 

“Dead!” exclaimed Fairfax. “There must be some 
mistake. I saw her this morning.” 

“That is impossible, monsieur. I knew her and went 
to her funeral.” 

Fairfax turned away from the house, and the young 
woman closed the door. 

One thing was certain. The ring was on his finger 
when the old woman stooped to kiss his hand. Directly 


166 


THE DEVIL m LOHDOH 


she had gone he missed it. The woman was the living 
image of Blanche D^Artignj, and Blanche D’Artigny 
was dead. 

Lost in thought, vainly seeking to explain the mys- 
tery to himself, a familiar voice spoke in his ear. 

^^The Devil can take what shape he chooses,” the 
voice said. ^^He has recovered possession of the Kajah’s 
ring. See London for yourself in future. Organize 
what parties you will to learn its secrets, you will have 
the Devil as your guide no more.” 

Then the young millionaire understood. The Bajah^s 
ring was lost to him forever. 

He heaved a sigh of relief. He had at least put it to 
excellent use while it was in his possession. He had 
gained a knowledge of London that would he of the 
greatest possible value to him in the social service he 
hoped to do with his wealth. 

And he would need the fiend as a companion no more. 
He had found an angel — an angel with a woman’s heart 
— to take the Devil’s place and to be his companion 
through life. 

THE EHD 


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